A Treasury spokeswoman said that the aim of the scheme, announced in last week's Budget, is 'to make it as easy as possible for carers to be accredited while ensuring the safeguarding of quality'.
She said it would apply to breakfast clubs and after-school clubs as well as nannies, who would not have to become registered childminders in order for the parents employing them to be eligible to claim childcare tax credits, as they do under the home carer scheme in England. The spokeswoman also stressed that it would be a voluntary scheme and that there would be 'no question of compelling nannies to join'.
The scheme is to be introduced from April 2005 and comes on top of other measures starting then that will improve the tax and National Insurance incentives for employer-supported childcare through a tax exemption on up to 50 a week of provision of formal childcare contracted either by the employer or paid for with childcare vouchers provided by the employer.
The Treasury has linked both schemes and said the Government would be consulting this summer 'on a new light-touch voluntary accreditation scheme to extend the range of good-quality childcare for financial support'.
When asked if the new scheme would be the first step to nanny registration and regulation, the DfES spokesman said that depended on the result of the consultation.
But Rosemary Murphy, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, warned that talking about a light-touch voluntary accreditation scheme 'should sound alarm bells for everyone concerned about quality'.
She said, 'We cannot move down a route that will give support to informal care, when the whole childcare strategy and tax credit system is based on national standards and regulation.'
