Nursery World - Tell us your problems, says early years head

The head of Ofsted's Early Years Directorate has acknowledged an array of teething problems with the new inspection regime and has urged providers to let Ofsted know about any difficulties being experienced. Maggie Smith told a London conference on childcare last week, 'I would expect that your experiences of regulation and inspection in the first six months have been very patchy. It's crucial that you contact us and tell us about any problems. We can't mend what we don't know about.'

Maggie Smith told a London conference on childcare last week, 'I would expect that your experiences of regulation and inspection in the first six months have been very patchy. It's crucial that you contact us and tell us about any problems. We can't mend what we don't know about.'

She said work on a review of the new national care standards, due to take place in 2003, was starting now and the Department for Education and Skills had just set up a group to collaborate with Ofsted on logging providers'

concerns, particularly about how the standards are being interpreted.

'The biggest problem we will face is whether interpretations are inconsistent. We are not going to get this right overnight,' she said. However, she stressed that consistency was not the same as uniformity.

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