Proposed deregulation of childminders

[Italiana]

The Department for Education and Ofsted are in discussion with the National Childminding Asociation (NCMA) about the proposal to 'deregulate' c/ms. This may lead to c/ms falling under the umbrella of an agency and losing the right to be individually inspected by ofsted. C/ms are very worried about issues of safeguarding and quality of care.
This has been reported in the media by the Daily Mail and The Guardian last week.

C/ms have started a campaign led by the NCMA against deregulation: 'Individual Inspections Matter' which can be found on their website www.ncma.org.uk. A survey of c/ms has found out that 85% want to remain regulated and equally recognized along other providers. C/ms in each area are campaigning many with petitions and approaching their local MP

If the deregalation needs to an increase in the number of CMs, then that's good IMO. It is over-regulated now in comparison with nannies etc.

I agree with Dozer...IMO far too much regulation. So much so that it went completely mad for a while with people getting nosy and reporting people to OFSTED for ridiculous reasons.

Other countries do not have the regulations that they have here and do just fine.

how will it impact upon those parents that pay by vouchers? Do they need to be "ofsted registered" childcare for the vouchers system to work?

I think you would still have to be registered, it just means that the system would be more like a school where there is an appointed 'head' type admin person / system that gets inspected and then all the childminders in that area end up with the same grade. I suppose they will ask for examples of satisfactory/good/outstanding and they will be inspected but no one else will. Money saving exercise.

There is no evidence that it will save money, yes the agency maybe the 'appointed' head but there are issues of safeguarding and quality of care.

Not sure how it will increase the number of c/ms more likely that many will leave the profession. All childcare is regulated some parts a bit over the top but it will not stop deregulation all together as the agency will regulate c/ms in return for a fee. Regulation has meant standards rising and that is what parents need.
There is no comparison with nannies who only have to register with Ofsted to allow parents to use c/vouchers but only need First Aid as training while c/ms have to comply with the Welfare requirements, the EYFS, Learning and Development and also offer the Free entitlement which nannies cannot do.
C/ms are also self employed and run their own businesses.

I am sure that parents will still be able to pay by vouchers as they can only be redeemed through registered childcare providers. There has been a lot in the press recently and once the c/ms' campaign starts to hit the headlines it will be more widely advertised.

What's the point then if it won't save money? Am I being unduly cynical in thinking that money saving is the agenda in this case - surely it will be cheaper to inspect the agency once rather than all the cms. One inspector could get through hundreds of cms in a day by inspecting agencies, whereas at the moment they can do 2 at most.

Please could you post a link to the actual proposals?

And evidence to support the assertion that current regulations have improved quality?

My understanding is that CM numbers dropped significantly in recent years, likely due to regulation.

Thr self-employment thing is a red herring, many CMs just have one or two clients; many nannies work for more than one family,

IMO the only things that should be regulated are numbers and safeguarding, and vouchers should be able to be used whether or not to carer delivers the EYFS.

The survey by NCMA, published by NCMA shows that only 2,908 childminders completed the survey. Ofsted's database is currently giving me a figure of 57,392 childminders. I make that a little over 5% of childminders actually responded to the survey. Are those 5% of childminders representative of the whole... hard to know. Their views may represent those of childminders in general, or they may not.

Question 2 that NCMA asked childminders (Source: Individual Inspection Matters Survey 18th May. .DOC format) was about the cost of regulation:
The current process of regulation and inspection is not costly to individual childminders. Only 1% of respondents stated registration fees were the largest annual cost to their childminding business.

The problem has been over the years that childminders have had their registration fees subsidised. There were proposals a few years back to change the fees to being self funding... that is that the cost charged to providers was the cost it actually costs to run the registration and inspection process.

In the Regulatory Impact Assessment from the Ofsted Childcare Register... I think this is dating back to 2006 ish time, the cost of registering a childminder was £750, with the same cost applying for the 3 yearly inspections.

So, I am wondering if this is about Money. Government want to save money and NCMA I would guess don't want their members to have to pay registration costs in the region of £750. Is it about money? If Ofsted are no longer involved in childminder registration and it falls under a different agency, is part of the proposal that such an agency will be self funding... that it will charge childminders the real cost of registration? Anyone know what is actually being proposed?

Thanks nick. I can't find anything on the actual proposals, but will post if I do.

Dozer, all I can find is Individual Inspection Matters on the NCMA website which links to various documents. I can not locate any actual Government proposal documents. Has anyone actually found any on Education.gov.uk or other government sites?

Here is something, from Conservative MP Elizabeth Truss.

<strong>Elizabeth Truss MP</strong>:'In the Netherlands there is a system of agencies which train and regulate childminders. They have twice the number of childminders per head than we have in the UK and also their childcare is more affordable. Would the Secretary of State look into what happens in the Netherlands with a view to getting better value for the universal credit money and getting more people into work as childminders??

<strong>The Rt Hon. Iain Duncan Smith MP</strong>: ?I take this opportunity to congratulate my honourable friend on the work she has been doing on this. And she is quite right; it is an important area and one which I have asked the Department and also the Department of Education to look at together. 
~~~ End Quote ~~~

Does that say that Government are proposing changes?  I don't think so... I think it just says that Government are looking at how things are done elsewhere to see if what works in other countries could work here.

I think that the fear is that CMers will still be inspected - and more frequently - but it'd be by agencies/development workers/children's centre/nursery staff, so it'd be even more random/unfair than (some people think) it is now. Also, the Government might choose to use a mode of the Danish system, whereby agencies take a lot of the autonomy away from the individual CM - and charge 10% of our fees to do so.

I can only speak for myself, but I don't want to have a shared grade, have my recruitment done, fees collected and policies determined by anyone else or be inspected by someone random - certainly not by a local nursery worker/agency!

This is taken from the report in nursery world

In the Netherlands, the agencies... then supervises the quality of childcare provided by conducting home visits and meets the childminder at least twice a year. Agencies also help childminders with their business plans as they tend to be self-employed. They produce a care plan, which childminders attached to the agency subscribe to...

Agencies are regulated through annual, unannounced inspections. The regulator also inspects childminders on a random basis (between 5 and 30 per cent of the total annually) to verify that the standards have been met...

The agency takes a percentage of the cost the parent pays for childcare (approx 10 percent in the Netherlands). Thus agencies have an incentive to ensure there are available quality childminders in areas that may be under resourced...

Introduction of an agency model also provides an opportunity to make use of existing Childminding Networks, nursery and local authority provision by their converting to agency status and taking on greater responsibility. I have met a number of nurseries who would be interested in offering training and support to local childminders. Agencies would also reduce the bureaucratic burden on individual childminders. They would market childminder services locally, collect payment from parents and to train childminders in best practice.

Hopefully this link works, where the issues are discussed in more detail.

Radio4 are reporting this morning that a paper has been published on this topic.

One thing that is in it is that childminder ratio should be changed, from 1 under 1 to 2 under 1 and from 3 under 5 to 5 under 5.

Can anyone locate the document?

It's on www.centerforum.org I'm on mobile so can't link directly to the PDF, could someone add that link?

It's on www.centerforum.org I'm on mobile so can't link directly to the PDF, could someone add that link?

Opps, should be centreforum.org

Below is the link explaining about the Dutch model of deregulation by the Daycare Trust. This model has failed to work
www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/1127031/Going-Dutch---dangers-deregulation/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

Link to the Guardian about the campaign launched by NCMA and more details
www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/15/childminders-warn-against-lighter-regulation?newsfeed=true

These are the comments by the Ofsted Chief Inspector about how mwun c/ms cost to register and inspect
www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/1122679/High-cost-inspecting-childminding-places-revealed/

I would like to stress that the DfE, Ofsted and NCMA are in initial discussions about this matter and nothing can be done or changed without a consultaion as the law needs changing and the new revised EYFS embraces c/ms with the rest of the workforce.
Elizabeth Truss is on BBC Radio 4 as I write...she has not got her figures right

The trouble is, all this talk of childminders being inspected by nursery workers, and nurseries offering training to childminders implies that nurseries are therefore superior in care to childminders. They're not.
I'd be insulted if my local nurseries had to inspect me. I have a higher grade than any of them in all areas and I have put on training for them in the past.
Why are they singling out childminders when the real issue is ratios? Are nurseries not expensive, too?
In Scandinavia, the ratios are much higher than in the UK (I believe it's one adult to around 7 children in a nursery) - one reason why their childcare is cheaper. Mind you, the Scandinavian children are more independent at an earlier age and there are less H&S regulations.

Exactly Tanith! You've said what I was trying (and v probably failing) to say last night. Most of the nurseries near me are really poor - which is why I became a CM rather than putting my son in one and going back to work. Their grades are satisfactory or, at best, good. Also the staff are, on the whole, young teenagers - and they have a high staff turnover.

I'm not surprised that they're keen to become agencies and provide training etc, as they'll be well paid for taking on the extra work, but that doesn't mean they'll be any good at it!

Though local authorities may become the 'agencies', so it may make it like it was before Ofsted came along - local authorities doing training and inspection.
Is there any reason why the local authority couldn't be the 'agency'?

If the changes proposed go ahead, this is what I was told by my DO, would effect me;

1. The goverment are thinking of stopping CM's accepting the £243pp Tax payment (can't think of its name sorry).
2. Only nurseries would be accredited therefore accredited CM's would no longer be able to offer the free funding places.
3. CM's would be graded as a group not individualy which for some cm's would mean gaining a higher grading but for some may mean a lower grading than what they have now.
4. CM's would be graded and trained by Nurseries. This makes them seem supirior than CM's, may be hard to gain an outstanding grade as nursereis may not want to grade above themselves, training may be poor.
5. My rations may go up.
6. I may be asked to pay 10% of my profits to the nurseries training and grading me.

There is alot of information about this topic on the Childminding forum.
www.childmindinghelp.co.uk/forum/

This is the latest article from Nursery World after the MP was on Radio 4 about Truss's ideas

www.nurseryworld.co.uk/.../1132835
I really would like to hear parents' views on this proposal... that would really help our campaign!!

Argh how would stopping us from taking vouchers etc help people access childcare? Also, paying a nursery to train and assess me? My response is unprintable
Furthermore, I don't want more children for less money.

Hi Nick,

That would probably work like the Networks were supposed to. I never had a problem with our Network co-ordinator popping round - she was much more thorough than OFSTED and she was also very supportive. However, our LA has complained that Networks are too expensive to administer, so we'd get a watered down version, I suspect.
The issues with this are that I think there's the potential for discrepancies between areas, and I don't want my grade to rely on anyone else: I work hard and I think I should have something to show for it.

Using the Children's Centres is fraught with problems, too. I haves very good relationship with mine - they're all friends. Others dislike childminders and try to discourage them.

And why aren't they addressing the high charges of nurseries? I thought they were more expensive.