Brett Wigdortz, co-founder and CEO, tiney, the UK’s largest childminder agency, whose childminders work across 146 of England’s 153 local authorities
In 2015 England had almost 48,000 childminders taking care of over a quarter of a million children. Today it has fewer than 26,000 looking after only 150,000 children on an average weekday. In the same decade, the government has more then doubled what it spends on funded childcare. Yet mention childminding and some people still picture a kindly neighbour with a few children in front of the TV and a plate of jam sandwiches. That picture is long out of date.
Today’s childminders are early years professionals and small businesses. They are trained in paediatric first aid and safeguarding, need an enhanced DBS check covering everyone over 16 in their home, and deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage, just as nurseries do. They are also badly under-appreciated. For many families, a childminder is the difference between a parent being able to work and not.
Most people probably don’t realise that childminders are regulated as well, inspected either by Ofsted or by their childminder agency. Given their responsibility for a baby’s safety and a child’s development, that is only right.
The trouble is they also have a second regulator by stealth: the local council. Unlike Ofsted or agencies, councils have no consistent rules and no national oversight. Our childminders are based in 146 of England’s 153 local authorities, so we see the differences every day.
For the same funded hours, one council pays on average in four days, whilst another takes 112 days. Funded hours make up around three quarters of a childminder’s income, so delays like this hit hard. If a child starts mid-term, the childminder may not be paid until the end of term, despite caring for that child the whole time. A few months without pay can close a small business before it has even got going – which is in direct contradiction of the government’s stated intent to support small businesses, the workers, and the strivers.
Then there are the varying rules from council to council, more baffling still. Our childminders deal with 18 different definitions of a “funded week”, and one council’s provider agreement runs to 52 pages. Statutory guidance allows agencies like tiney to handle our childminders’ funding admin, yet only 23 of the 146 councils let us. Some won’t deal with agencies at all.
My biggest frustration is housing. Around one in seven of the people we train has to drop out because their landlord, often the council, won’t let them work from home.
In effect, one part of the council is deciding that a home fit for a family to live in is not fit for two more children to be cared in during the day. Often it decides that without visiting the home or speaking to the applicant. Meanwhile another part of the same council has a legal duty to make sure there is enough local childcare. One department shuts the door the other is required to open.
This government’s renewed focus on the early years has been encouraging. It wants more parents in work and more children ready for school, with children with SEND getting the support they need. These are goals we can all unite behind. Childminders help make that happen, yet the way some councils treat them is the biggest thing within the government’s gift holding back childminder numbers. The government writes the rules, councils apply them, and nobody owns the gap in between.
We all want the government’s childcare review to succeed. Four changes would help almost straight away:
- pay providers within a fixed number of days;
- Make yes the default for home-based childminding in social housing, with refusal only after a visit and with a good reason;
- agree one national definition of a funded week; and
- make councils work with registered agencies.
None of this requires new money, only political will. It needs the government to recognise the problem and take ownership of fixing it.
