The National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) reported last week that many of its members had already been facing problems as a result of lengthy delays in police checks of staff by Ofsted's Early Years Directorate, but now the delays have been compounded by the recent introduction of the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), which has fallen behind schedule due to a higher than expected workload.
Rosemary Murphy, NDNA chief executive, said, 'Last week at a meeting of providers in Kirklees, some said they have been waiting six months to get members of staff cleared.'
She added that there seemed to be no consistency in practice. 'In Newcastle, NDNA members have not been told what's going on - some get two inspectors, others one; some have a full-day inspection, others a half-day; some inspections are akin to an old annual inspection, others a fact-finding mission; and some get a report, while others are told there won't be a report.
'There has been an accumulation of problems. But it's not Ofsted's fault. The pulling together of 150 different local authorities has been a bigger job than was anticipated. In the past year we have gone from local authority social services to Ofsted and now the CRB for police checks, so we are sure that some people's applications have got lost somewhere down the line.'
The Hopscotch Childcare Centre in Birmingham has had to wait between five and eight months to obtain police checks for nine of its staff since Ofsted took over the registration and inspection of daycare in England last summer.
Diana Medford, the centre's head, said, 'We have had problems with nine police checks since Ofsted took over from local social services. At various times we phoned our local Ofsted office to find out what was happening and were assured everything would be sorted out, but it wasn't.
'The final straw came in February when Ofsted told one of my branch managers, "We have more important people to deal with than you". As a result we went to an agency called Tutor Check, who processed all nine police checks - two going back to last July - for us by 9 April.
'You have to meet Ofsted's standards, but how can you when the body enforcing it prevents you from doing so?'
An Ofsted spokeswoman admitted that there were problems but said some of these were 'compounded by incomplete documentation'. She added, 'We are still working on creating an up-to-date database because it is still incorrect as the reliability of data is still suspect in some cases.'
A Home Office spokesman said that although the CRB had been operational for two months, it was not meeting its target of processing 90 per cent of checks within three weeks. He added, 'The turnaround target was 90 per cent of applications for Enhanced and Standard checks within three weeks. However, the CRB is confident it will meet its original targets in the next two to three months.'
Last week education secretary Estelle Morris spoke to home secretary David Blunkett about the CRB. A DfES spokesman said, 'Estelle Morris has stressed the need for the CRB to be sorted out as soon as possible and the Home Office has assured us they're tackling the problem urgently.'
