Last month’s annual Ofsted report makes for sobering reading: the number of childcare places continues to dwindle and childminders in particular are leaving the sector at a much faster rate than they are joining.
However, one line in the report stopped me in my tracks. The report suggests that this decline could be due to ‘more parents working from home, which may reduce demand for childcare places.’ It’s an explanation given without a citation for an obvious reason. Offering out of touch ‘hunches’ when the stakes are this high is frankly insulting to parents and providers.
The suggestion that demand is lessening comes just two months after thousands of parents across the UK took to the streets to voice their desperation for local, affordable childcare. With protests in Birmingham, Belfast, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Glasgow, Leeds, London, Manchester, Newcastle, and Norwich, how can this be anything short of a national crisis?
The childminders in our community have very little trouble finding demand for their services. Families in their local areas are crying out for affordable childcare. If anything, we’re seeing an almost unlimited demand for childminder places met with a finite supply, despite our community growing tenfold since 2021.
This is becoming increasingly apparent as we recruit childminders in new regions. In Liverpool, for example, one of our first childminders to open the doors to her business received over 100 enquiries on day one. Another one of our trainees has a full waiting list before even completing her registration, and it’s almost exclusively filled by families living on the same road. These are just two local examples that illustrate the scale of the issue.
Demand is clearly high, and we cannot allow the completely legitimate rise in remote working to become another excuse not to act on the childcare crisis. Flexible working, something which ought to empower parents, should not be wielded against them. Those who think that working from home eliminates the need for any childcare have clearly never tried to meet a tight deadline with a toddler in tow! Many of these parents need flexible childcare more than ever – especially the kind of wraparound care primarily offered by childminders.
Rather than denying that this demand exists or looking to explain away the decline in early years professionals, policy makers and regulators need to focus on helping the sector keep pace with it. Childminders and nursery workers aren’t leaving because of lack of demand for their services, they are leaving for more systemic factors, from feeling undervalued, to being inundated with burdensome paperwork, to simple loneliness in an often isolating profession. Recognising and acting on the real causes of this exodus is the only way to stem it.
It’s largely why in the same period that Ofsted say 5,590 childminders left the sector, tiney - a single agency - registered over 250, with hundreds more currently in training. We’re the fastest growing part of a sector suffering huge attrition, and that’s entirely down to the remuneration, training, and support we offer. From access to marketing tips and a ready-made community, all the way up to a dedicated app which eliminates the stresses of paperwork, our childminders have the tools they need to thrive. Tiney and other childminding agencies (CMAs) like us are a huge part of the recruitment and retention of early years professionals.
Amplifying the role of CMAs would go a long way to streamlining the involvement of Ofsted, simplifying the process of registering as a childminder, and giving providers the support and tools they need to run successful childcare businesses more directly. No doubt the reintroduction of start-up grants would also encourage more people to join the sector; a recent survey of tiney childminders showed that 92 per cent of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that a start up grant would have made it easier for them to begin their childminding career.
The unsubstantiated comment from Ofsted makes for a frustrating framing of the situation and risks undermining the urgency of the childcare crisis. We won’t make strides towards a more sustainable childcare sector if policy makers and regulators deceive themselves about the current state of affairs. As we enter into a new year, we must be more pragmatic. If we focus on the facts before us - and not rely on speculation - I’m hopeful that we can turn the tide on the exodus of childminders and offer more families much-needed support to ensure that all children are given the best possible start in life.
