Today the Government unveiled a report entitled ‘More Great Childcare’
BAPN applauds a thorough report which shows evidence of taking on board the concerns expressed by Professor Nutbrown however we are extremely disappointed by the lack of any reference to nannies, despite home based care being highlighted as meeting the parents’ needs for flexibility. We had hoped to see a provision for nannies, who are often highly qualified, to register to provide the Early Years funding which would ease the financial burden considerably for many parents. There needs to be a focus on streamlining funding to ensure it reaches the front line and reducing costs for parents in a way that does not compromise quality. Children benefit from forming close bonds with carers and carers who are able to invest time in building relationships with them and relaxed ratios would be detrimental to this.
The report also ignores calls from within the sector for increased regulation of nannies or nanny agencies yet seeks to create childminding agencies which would be registered by OFSTED. We are concerned that a hard-headed focus on increasing quality in currently regulated sectors combined with the looser child:adult ratio will result in redundancy of less qualified staff, driving poorer quality providers to unregulated childcare work. BAPN works to raise the standard of professional nannies in line with other early years professionals. An influx of those considered no longer suitable to work in nurseries or as childminders would be detrimental to children and a real possibility if an entire sector of home based care continues to be unregulated.
The report rightly recognises there is an issue with parental confidence in the system. There is, however, no mention of the voluntary OFSTED register. Our recent consultation (report to be published) indicates that there is a significant amount of improvement to be made in this area. We fail to see how increasing the number of children per carer will inspire more confidence, even combined with more rigorous inspections and higher qualifications.
Overall we feel this report misses an opportunity to create a cohesive structure for the Early Years sector, or at the very least integrate on a voluntary professional nannies who have been marginalised by successive Governments. We call upon Ms Truss to take these issues into consideration when effecting legislative change.
bapn 