Childminding profession alarmed over calls to take on more children

By choosing a childminder, parents are guaranteed a home environment for their child alongside no more than five other children under the age of eight.

But the cost of childcare to government, providers and parents has prompted one Conservative MP to propose expanding this ratio to make the childminding profession more sustainable and ease the burden on parents’ pockets.

In a report for the think-tank Centre Forum, Elizabeth Truss recommends that the government adopts a model of regulation akin to that of the Netherlands, where agencies train and monitor child-minders. Funding is channelled through these agencies, which bring together parents and child-minders. Between five and 30 per cent of the agencies are randomly selected for inspection each year.

Truss believes this would allow for higher ratios of children to staff. She argues that where childminders can currently only care for three children aged under five, this should increase to five; and where childminders can now only care for one baby, they should be able to take on two.

But Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, says any changes to the current ratios would be inappropriate. “Any parent with twins will tell you how challenging caring for two babies is, and to propose this as the norm is unacceptable,” he says. “Indeed, the recent Tickell review found that present adult-to-child ratios were supported by parents and carers, so we do not believe there are any grounds for changing them.

“While we can understand the rationale behind such a move from an economic perspective, we must ask whether financial concerns are outweighing the benefits to children. The key parental concern is not financial, but about safety and security.”

Joyce Connor, programme director at the Early Childhood Unit at the National Children’s Bureau, says current ratios are linked to quality of care.

“All the evidence on early development and attachment theory shows that for our youngest children, quality depends on that very close one-to-one relationship,” she says.

However, Connor concedes that there is room for debate on ratios for older children and settings where there is an early years professional who might be able to maintain the level of quality with more children because of their training.

Childminders have overwhelmingly voiced opposition to Truss’s proposals, with more than 3,000 responding to a National Childminding Association (NCMA) survey on the matter. Seventy per cent believe Truss’s proposals will have a “detrimental effect” on the quality and safety of care offered to children.

NCMA visited children’s minister Sarah Teather to express their feelings in May, but the government is still keen on exploring ideas that could reduce costs for providers and government, while supporting quality.

Catherine Farrell, joint chief executive of NCMA, says that while clear proposals are yet to emerge, any plans to lighten inspections of childminders alongside a rise in the ratios of staff to children would be cause for concern.

“We know that parents value the individual attention and the personalised care that the child receives in a childminder setting and lower ratios deliver that experience for the child,” she says.
 
“We have childminders who don’t operate at full capacity and that is by choice because they make judgments about what is best for the children in their setting.”

Farrell is also concerned that changes to ratios could affect parental choice for families with disabled children. “Parents of children who have additional needs often go to childminders as a first choice because they can deliver that one-to-one care,” she says. “That consideration cannot be lost in this debate.”