Nanny employers, how do you feel about Ofted inspecting your nanny in your home?

[AtheneNoctua]

Following on from the below linked threads, I am shocked and appalled at this level of inspection invasion. My nanny is not Ofsted registered. But if she was, I would tell Ofsted to meddle elsewhere.

Ofsted nanny inspection - what do I need?

Ofsted comming tomorrow for a chat,

I think common core is the only course required at the mo to meet Osted's requirements. It can be done distance learning but (when I looked into it) costs the same as doing it in classes.

I still want to know why Ofsted charge £103 to renew your registration but seem to do nothing to justify that cost.

Is it offered in French, Itallian, Spanish, Polish, etc.?

What does this course tech a nanny that he/she wouldn't already be expected to know to get the job in the first place?

No we don't live in France, Italy, Poland. If we were in say Italy, would you expect courses there to be provided in languages other than Italian?
Don't think it teaches anything, as to me it seemed like common sense. Safe Guarding Children local area procedures may be the thing someone would need to look up.

Shall I write a paper about it then?

I reckon we're going to need more childcare and eldercare rather than less over the next two decades, so perhaps it's timely.

With regard to childcare qualifications, wth my professional eye, I looked at some of the entry level ones aimed at allowing people to become approved childcarers, and I felt they were so simplistic that they were an insult to the profession.

Yes please, boff! And can you quote us?

nn/Athene - course doesn't teach anything if you have common sense and a basic knowledge of food hygiene, child safety and child protection. My course also touched on employment/self-employment (on which subject, sadly, I knew more than the tutor). More info here. I don't think that many parents test, for example, child protection and inclusion/anti-bias practice so a nanny needn't necessarily know the first thing about them. The course is designed to equip childcarers with the knowldge needed in worst case situations such as child abuse, not to help them get a job.

I don't get why the course should be offered in other languages (with the exception of Welsh, which is available). We are in Britain, English is the official language. You can bet that my training to become an 'assistante maternelle' in France won't be offered in English and that's 120 hours with an oral exam. And why should it?

Boff - yes do write a paper on the subject. Just as long as we get to see a copy!

Because you are excluding all those people from EU countries who come over partly to practice their English, who are also in my opinion perfectly qualified to look after my children. I am not that bothered about their English skills.

I am very interested in potential nanny's:
1- Interest and active participation in sport / fitness
2- Nutrition and that she will lead by example on this front. So I care what his/her own diet is.
3- If she/he knows how to cook nutritious food and is not so inclined to serve it from a box.
4- His/her ability and desire to live in another person's house.

These are all things that are very important to me. Other things are very important to Ofsted and may disqualify candidates I would be happy with. Having to hire candidates who fulfill all of my requirements and all of Ofsteds requirements will surely rqaise the proce of childcare, which is already way too expensive in this country. So, I oppose regulation and licensing of nannies full stop. They are my children and I am perfectly capable of selecting suitable care for them.

I neither need nor welcome a less qualified government body telling me what I can or cannot do in the hiring process.

I have always thought that the tying the childcare vouchers to Ofsted regulation was the thin edge of a very ugly nanny state wedge. And here we are with people already saying it's too late to turn back. It is not too late. And I do expect to see changes in the next government.

If you impose all this British regulation, you will largely exclude foreign nannies from the mix. And i suspect the result will be a lot more cash in hand as a way to dodge the regulation. Or perhaps people will hire doestic employees by another title and then hand them the kids. Is that an improvement? I don't think so.

Wouldn't it be up to the course providers to provide the courses in various languages, if there was sufficient demand?
I don't think DCSF or Ofsted necessarily say that courses have to be done in English... more that a suitable course needs to be done, so that course could be in any language.

In the Sept2009 version of the guide to registration, it says
"Any other training or qualification will be accepted providing the childcare
provider can demonstrate that it is Common Core compliant." No mention of language.

But it takes ages to jump through those hoops. You (the employer) also has to incur the cost of having documents translated. Then pay the £103 to get her registrated. This often takes 6+ months for foreign nannies. By the time you are finished it is almost time for the nanny to leave.

It's too expensive for normal people to to take all of this on just so they can go to work. I suppose people who earn a combined income of 200k+ can absorb all this. But, not everyone who needs a nanny falls into that income bracket.

Again, I'm happy for these regulation to be in place for childcarers who serve the public. But not for employees.

Also, what about au pairs. My younger child will go full time in January. So we are nearing the point of dropping from nanny to au pair. We probably won't make this drop just yet on account of us both travelling and so we need overnight care fairly often; and I feel that's too much for an au pair. But, if we didn't travel we would be looking at an au pair for a 5 and 7 year old. So, what then? Will Ofsted want to regulate anyone who looks after say under 8s? Or does it have to be someone with a job title of "nanny", in which case there will probably be a massive trend to call your nanny something other than "nanny" in the official job description and contract.

Will pregnant women who haven't been Ofsted registered be allowed to keep their babies, or will they call Ofsted in for fear that parents might actually make mistakes?

There are too many job titles for the same thing. Au-Pairs do not exist... it was an immigration category. Now that some of the restrictions on who can come to the UK have been lifted, that visa category was removed. Thus an Au-Pair could equally be called a Live-In Nanny, a Live-In Mothers-Help.
Thus Ofsted do not use the job title Nanny. They use Home Childcarer - which describes anyone who works in the home of the child for whom they provide care, for a period exceeding 2 hours in any day.

Parents do not need to recruit from abroad. If they choose to do so, then there may be additional costs involved in document translation.

It looks to me as though the ISA remit will cover anyone who has contact with a child whom is not their relative "frequently, intensively and/or overnight". Parents employing care in their home are exempt from making compulsory checks on the person providing the care... but it will be an offence for someone who is barred to be employed in a role caring for children. It is the individual concerned who would be in breach, not the employer - in the case of Domestic Employment. ISA Legal Responsibilities

Ofsted deal with Approved Care, so only affects parents who wish to use Tax Credits or Childcare Vouchers. Parents don't have to use those schemes, so don't have to have an Approved carer. Unlikely that Ofsted's remit will extend further, given that the ISA's remit is covering more childcarers and is focusing on the person - in my view.

"Parents do not need to recruit from abroad. If they choose to do so, then there may be additional costs involved in document translation. "

I think this is the parent's decision frankly. Who is Ofsted or anyone else to say they don't need to recruit from X, especially when X is part of the EU. And if they really want to it will cost them extra. Isn't there a Europen law which states it is illegal to prevent a an EU citizen from seeking work in another EU country? I'm sure about this or what the law is called, but I thought there was one.

"British jobs for British workers" anyone?

Athene - that course can be done with a very limited level of english, especially if by distance learning with the aid of a good dictionary. So if someone has enough english for you to allow them to look after your children (presuming that you want them able to liase with school, help with homework occasionally and communicate in an emergency) then they'll be able to cope.

If you want a foreign nanny then say they have to arrive with certified translations of their documents - it's not uncommon in other countries for that to be the case. No way would an employer pick up the cost! The way I think regulation would be intended to work is that people don't start working with children until they're in a position to do so i.e. registered so you wouldn't be in the position of waiting 6+ months because when you recruited they should be ready to start work or you'd like them so much that you'd be prepared to wait 6 months. Other registered professions wouldn't let you start work until everything had come through - childminders can't and we often get posts on here where registration has been delayed and the answer is always the same: you can't childmind until it's all through. You wouldn't want a doctor who isn't registered with the GMC yet treating you! Unfortunately with the way it is at the moment it's not compulsory so people don't do it unless their employers want them to because it doesn't benefit the carer.

The current system is crap but it needn't be if someone put a bit of thought into it and registration isn't the end of the world. The ISA scheme is going the right way with its focus on suitability but I do support OFSTED's aim to professionalise things by asking for qualifications and insurance. Unforunately they haven't quite worked out their inspections yet but the OFSTED scheme has only been around a couple of years since it replaced the CAS which was much more suitable for nannies because it was designed for them. OSTED appear to think nannies are childminders in the child's home which isn't the case, and that is starting to meddle with the control an employer has, but it won't last past a test case.

I think that's blowing it a bit out of proportion. The legislation you're referring to says it's illegal to prevent the free movement of goods and workers but each country retains the right to insist on registration of certain professions, notably medical and healthcare but not exclusively. A 'foreign' trained teacher cannot teach in a French state school - that is perfectly legal. Any student applying for a degree in another country has to provide translated transcripts, references and other evidence - that is also perfectly legal. Working abroad is a choice and if making that personal choice you personally incur additional expense then that's life.

Parents are free to recruit from wherever they like but people applying for jobs should be in a position to accept them according to the regulations in the country they're applying for the job in.

Explains the situation better than I can

The key point I think is this bit:

Under the system of mutual recognition of qualifications, a Community citizen who is fully qualified in one Member State is entitled to exercise a regulated profession * in another Member State. Depending on the activity in question and the training completed, recognition will be either automatic or preceded by a period of adaptation or an aptitude test.

So it's perfectly fine to require someone to register with OFSTED/ISA. They may have to undertake a course if their qualification is not common core compliant, they don't have a paediatric first aid (but foreign ones have been accepted in the past) and have a police check done but none of that is illegal.

Maybe our island should be part of the EU - but that's another whole argument! Our Government restricts entry to people outside of the EU, in the same way as other countries restrict people working and living in their countries.
While there is free movement of people between EEA countries, I don't think there is a law that says that the country to which the person is going has to provide all documentation in that persons first language. Would seem rather impractical to me.

Perfectly legal to have a language requirement, nick

From here: Member States may require migrants to have the language knowledge necessary for practising the profession.

Maybe we shouldn't be part of the EU - I meant to write! We are after all a separate island, with our own ruler and own government.

Good - glad you found that frakkin... I didn't think it was reasonable to expect a member state to produce lots of things in other languages... the costs alone would be prohibitive.

But all of the examples provided here are of people who serve the public, and therefore licensing and regulation makes sense. I employ a nanny only to look after my own children. If I want to hire the milkman who happens to be a friend of mine I should be able to. Or if I want to employ the next door neighbor whom I know well enough to feel comfortable entrusting my children to her care, I should also be able to do that.

There really is a point where there is so much bearocracy that people will just avoid reporting there children's carers as the employees that they are. Whilst fairly harmless, this all amounts to unnecessary cost. That is wasteful and I object because it really doesn't bring much value to the job. And it doesn't cover the things that are important to me. For example, anyone who thinks a chip is a vegetable and doesn't know the difference between and adjective and adverb is not qualified to look after my primary school age kids. But, Ofsted won't ask these things. So what is the point?

Because that's your view on what makes them suitable, athene. OFSTED are more interested in chilcarers knowing that smacking is not an acceptable form of discipline and who they need to go to if they think a child is being abused.

If people stop declaring their children's carers as employees then there's a whole new level of sanction and that is against the parent, so whilst there will always be people doing that I think swift action from the bods in the tax office might nip that one in the bud. What then happens about unpaid care I don't know?

I do agree that you should be able to hire whom you like, as it isn't a public role. But child protection these days is being seen more of a social matter I feel, something that isn't purely down to parents. Children may indeed need protection from their own parents. The state does intervene on child protection matters, so I do feel it's logical that those people caring for children are to be screened more and more.

Looking back through history, regulation of childcare has come about due to cases of child abuse. In late 1800's we had Baby Farming cases, though it wasn't until 1948 that specific regulations were made with regard to Nurseries and Childminders. Subsequent cases has led to further regulations - Soham for example, in which one of the recommendations was "The introduction of a new register for those who wish to work with children, involving regular updates and a 'passport' with a photograph and biometric details. This would be easily accessed by an employer;" The ISA system doesn't seem to be going quite that far... but it is along those lines.

If Ofsted just stuck to the remit of focusing on Child Protection, would you be happy?

nick I've just read the reply you posted on one of the other threads where you went through what OFSTED are supposed to inspect and compared it to a recent inspection and really the problem actually seems to be that inspectors aren't doing their job rather than OFSTED actually being ridiculous. So we're making a massive mountain out a molehill and really we need to be focusing on getting OFSTED to do their job, their whole job and nothing but their job.

Campaign anyone?

boff - I hope you're noting all this down for your paper. OFSTED are officially interfering busybodies.

Yes, I think Anthene may have started this thread following on from that one, which now that I have analysed it shows that the Ofsted inspector went beyond their remit. Ofsted does need to keep a check on their inspectors... telling nannies to do daily diarys, to do this, to do that is not Ofsted's job. Ofsted should only be checking that the nanny meets the requirements for registration.

"OFSTED are officially interfering busybodies" - even I agree with that and I worked for them in the past! They are going beyond their remit and need to be pulled up on that.

Yes, this was started on the back of that thread. And, yes, if they were just checking registration details I wouldn't mind so much. But, Ofsted is not welcome in my house beacause, as we all know, they don't acklowlege their rightful boundaries.

But, I still would not require my foreign nanny to take some silly course that told her things she already knows. I also would not be prepared to atake time off work or provide alternative care for the time it takes her to do this course.

Oh well. As I said earlier, this isn't really going to affect me because my kids are getting older and so I will probably not be a nanny employer when/if the nanny state geschtapo come into law.

But I am hopeful that the forthcomming Conservative government will turn back the tide. Finger crossed....

Oh, and Nick, regarding the whether the UK should be part of the EU definitely a whole nother thread!

Ah, I've enjoyed this debate