AIBU to want to poke who ever is responsible for the direct.gov cock up in the eye?

[navyeyelasH]

I'm so cross right now I can't even type about why I am cross!!!

ARGHHH!!!

MORONS!!!

I know where you are coming from!!
Details are hard to find - type in my own post-code and I live 2 miles from it supposedly and goodness knows how many pages down the list. Since site started I have had no phone calls from this source at all-new after school club doing very well though-no competition from local childminders as a parent would have to be very desperate to trawl through hundreds of childminders to find one servicing their school. Grrrrrrr!

Trouble is, who is responsible? All the parties concerned seem to blame each other, or say it's working as designed. Hmm, who designed it?

Some of the parties could be named, though doing so may get MNHQ in trouble and we don't want that... so I'll just say... Google has the answers.

The idea was good. The implementation in my personal view has let it down somewhat. At some point a decision was made to allow local authorities to appoint their own contractors to provide the front end system. That I feel was the mistake. As any database designer will know, crap in = crap out. The database is only as good as it's raw data. If that raw data is wrong, messed with in some way, whatever the case may be in the current situation (has any local authority admitted what the fault actually is?), then the back end system has no hope of producing meaningful results.

On 26 Jan 2010, The Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP officially launched the Family Information Directory. Maybe she has answers:

Private office to The Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo
Telephone: 020 7925 6951
Email: [email protected]

mum2akebk - Are you a member of the NCMA? If so, I feel NCMA are partly to blame for you not coming up as the correct distance, as I think it was the NCMA who objected to the publication of Childminder Postcodes. I suspect they had more influence on the decision than individuals who responded to the consultation (November 2007-Feb 2008). Just my view of course Consultation results from the Ofsted Site (note This link goes to Google such that the document is translated into HTML thus should be viewable on more computers/devices)

In the NCMA Annual Report (March 2009) it says:

"NCMA, led by the support of members, was influential in persuading Ofsted to retain the status quo in not publishing individual childminder's address details on its website."

So if you want your address details to appear, contact NCMA in writing and tell them that you as a member DO NOT support withholding individual childminder's address details. If enough people do that, perhaps NCMA will lobby the Government on their members behalf to get the previous decision reversed.

I am desperate to fill my vacancies. So far I have been told that I can be found via my name, or URN number, but for some reason the post code search is not working. I KNOW! If they know my name or URN number, then they probably don't need to use the web any more! Apparently my case has been marked as 'URGENT', but I'll still keep hassling them every day to get it sorted. I have gone from loads of calls when I had no vacancies and now having no calls when I am desperate to fill my spaces!

The thing that bugs me most is not really that it has gone tits up; it's that no-one is accountable and every time I speak to someone in FIS they seem like total numpties and have no idea what I'm talking about. One even tried to fob me off saying I was on the national strategies site so it doesn't matter that I'm not on direct.gov.

I spent about 20 minutes filling out a form so that when FIS send parents my information/it is accessed via direct.gov it looks professional. But I don't even appear on the results for my area and the stuff they send out to parents is missing most of the information (my website isn't even on it FFS!!)and the rest is misspelt.

And don't even get me started with the actual content of the database it's clearly designed by someone who has never looked for childcare! Who are these idiots they get to do this sort of thing (navy goes off to google before she implodes)? It doesn't even say which school a childminder collects from without clicking into each listing and the advanced search is about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

I'm just so cross they they always seem to be banging on about wanting new childminders and they can't adequately support the ones they do have!

I'm going to drop that Dawn Primarolo an email and ask her what the hell is going on. In a much nicer tone than this post!

I don't really get cross but geewhizz this is driving me to distraction!

[vent]

nannynick, you're a star. thanks for that info. it's really helpful.

I doubt the MP will do anything though possibly useful for them to be aware that what they are promoting does not actually work from a childcare providers, or from a parent looking for childcare prospective in certain LA area's.

I'm in Surrey and the county councils own system works, it just isn't uploading data to the national database. For those in Surrey, I have the contact details for a senior person at SurreyCC who will deal with complaints, contact me direct for details if you want them. Don't expect them to fix it mind, though may make you happier to have someone direct to contact rather than deal with the SurreyFIS general info line.

I don't really have time to go into this right now, but I just want to say that I totally agree with you -- although from a paren't perspective. It is totally inexcusable that they removed a good site and replaced it with one that frankly doesn't even compare.

What I want to know is who turned off the old site before the new one was up to scratch -- and it is still not up to scratch.

The NCMA should certainly, in my opinion, have a role in speaking of for it's members whose businesses have been damaged.

Maybe it would be worth contacting the conservatives and ask if they might be able to sort it out after the election? They will be looking for things to improve, and there is plenty of room for improvement here.

Okay, it turns out I found the time to write a long post.

Oh please poke them for me too! I'm now shown 2 miles away from my own postcode on the other side of town, and on the map my location is in the middle of a large piece of open ground, not even on a road. I've given up complaining as I get passed from pillar to post, but it is a totally shocking service and has had a very demoralising impact on numbers of enquiries.

I used to be in the right place

But I moved during this week to 2 miles away

I've been told it will be sorted by the end of march!!!!

I was told the end of january when I rang before xmas.

I apparently lived 20 miles away from my postcode in september, I then resigned from childminding in november,I discovered that fact when I rang in january.

I have rung the local FIS who are responsible for the correct data being uploaded to the national directory every week for the last 4 weeks to try to get my information online. I am now on the local directory for the first time sinse september and I have been promised by monday I will be on the national one, we live in hope!!!!

Anyone know what NCMA are doing about the current situation? While they may feel it's right to continue to withhold childminder's full address details... what are they doing about the more general problems of this new system? Anyone know?

Apparently nothing.

I am so fecking cross about this. I was desperately looking for a childminder and have no idea where else to look. Local authority website is not v helpful either and doesn't list which schools childminders pick up from. I could contact all 100 or so CMs in the area to ask but that is a HUGE task. WTF are parents meant to do? And, if I were a childminder I'd be livid. I'm sure many are losing out on clients. Funnily enough, all the local authority after school clubs are listed correctly. Grrrr.

I can tell you what the NCMA are doing. They've been trying to sort this whole sorry mess out with the Government since the problem arose in September.

The latest update is that they've asked some childminders to be on hand for a telephone interview with a Government official in order to tell them directly what is wrong, how it is affecting us and what we need in place. To date, I've waited in twice for this official to ring me and each time have not been contacted. They also want us to attend a workshop, but it's on a weekday so most childminders can't attend .

Don't blame the NCMA or the Government or OFSTED for this. It's the fault, so far as I can see, of local authorities who don't have the up to date software on their systems to upload vacancy information. They were informed about the change months before it actually happened but someone, somewhere decided it wasn't a priority to get the problem fixed in advance.

The current mess is the result.

But who told the local authorities they could contract out the computer systems to whomever they liked? Why aren't they all using the same system? So Government does have some blame there, I feel.

NCMA have some blame with regard to the Postcode situation... while some childminders will agree with them, others won't. So why not make ask each person individually and let them decide if they want postcode level data published or not.

Attend a workshop - I've not had an invite... and the company behind the national system know my contact details, as does DCFS as does the head of my local authority Information Systems department. Hmm, why am I not being invited Holding a workshop, feedback sessions etc during Mon-Fri is madness, most people work Mon-Fri.

And if none of the local authorities were ready, why did they remove the old site? If it were just a handful, I'd understand but it seems as if it is many LA's that aren't using this properly.

The contract with the old site provider ran out I think. Parallel running of systems would have been nice but given that LA's systems were also being changed, I guess it was not practical to have two different systems in operation.

A lot of the blame does seem to me to lay with the LAs. Some have their own systems working but not updating the national system. For example, in Surrey this works but it's hard to find a Surrey childminder on the national system.

My local site is also quite good but does not show which schools the CMs pick up from which the old gov site did. It means, i am faced with a list of 100 or so local/ semi-local CMs who I can contact but it's ridiculous that I would need to do that.

I've given up and use childcare.co.uk instead. FIS is so useless. They haven't even got my email address right and I know they have it because it was on the website before they changed it.

I got a list of random childcare operatives from the LA, but lots of the information was out of date or didn't apply to me and was more or less useless. It would have taken me weeks, literally weeks to wade through all the data, such was the sound-to-noises ratio. Plus two different council people sent me identically useless lists of supposedly 'tailored' information (eg including details of workplace nurseries locally I would not be allowed to use, not working for the companies concerned, and including details of CMs who I know are curremtly out of the country and have been for the last year). It's a joke.

has anyone got any further with this?? I'm about to visit FIS and get some answers!

I have finally appeared on it in my area (aparrently the only CM in the area!!!) but my details are wrong!