The recent announcements by the Department for Education (DfE) and Ofsted about the new childminder ‘flexibilities’ that come into force on 1 November have taken lots of childminders by surprise. While we knew the previous government were considering these changes, the current government have only recently confirmed they are putting them in place.
The aim, as part of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act (October 2023), is to introduce new flexibilities for childminders to enable them to ‘expand and grow their business if they wish to’.
The glory of childminding has always been that it is home-based childcare and as such, the closest form of care a little one will receive outside their own home. There are concerns among childminders and organisations that the new flexibilities are diluting or removing that uniqueness.
The changes will:
- See the number of people that can work together under a childminder’s registration (including the childminder) increase from three to four.
We have no initial objection to this providing the space requirements are met. However, having potentially four adults and 24 children in a home will need a substantial amount of room and won’t be an option for many childminders. We feel this change is more aimed at those who want to work from premises other than domestic premises for all or most of the time.
- Create a new category of childminder, ‘childminder without domestic premises’, who would work entirely from non-domestic premises.
We know that many children thrive in a childminding environment because of the homeliness and lower ratios, when a larger group setting just doesn’t suit them. Hiring a village hall or similar won’t offer the comfort or snuggling opportunities that current childminding does.
We know many potential childminders have restrictions on their homes preventing them from childminding, but financially this new category of registration is unlikely to be a viable alternative for individual childminders as overheads are significantly different.
Where four childminders work together in non-domestic premises, it will appear more like a pre-school or small day nursery and not like a childminding setting, which could be confusing for parents. If this flexibility is aimed at small pre-schools who have difficulties recruiting qualified staff to change their registration to childminding, this could cause sustainability issues due to the lower childminding adult:child ratios.
While we totally welcome measures to increase the number of childminders, and childcare places, there appears to be universal objection for including childminding in the name of this new category.
- Giving childminders with domestic premises, and providers of childcare on domestic premises, greater flexibilities to spend more time operating outside of domestic premises, such as a community hall or school.
While many childminders will continue to register and work as home-based childminders, it seems they could work from their domestic premises for just one day a year and still comply with home-based registration requirements. If this was the case, there would be very little difference between domestic and non-domestic childminders.
- Increase the number of people needed for childcare on domestic premise (CODPs) to operate from four or more, to five or more people providing care (CODPs that were registered, or applied to register, before 1 November can continue operating with four or more people).
In light of the increase in the number of childminders working together from three to four, this makes sense, however, we believe there will only be a very limited number of childminders with homes large enough to accommodate five adults and 30 children.
The Government also needs to ensure that effective messaging is sent to all local authorities to remove the barriers childminders regularly face such as having to seek (and pay for) planning permission if the setting will be caring for more than six children and the local authority stating a cabin in a childminders garden is subject to business rates.
