Anne Longfield, Chief Executive at 4Children said: “4Children welcomes Beverley Hughes MP, Minister for Children’s announcement today of a change in proposed policy in the Childcare Bill to require that community childcare for 6 and 7 year old children will be compulsory as part of the proposed Ofsted Childcare Register.

“We are pleased that the Government has acknowledged that parents and families need the highest standards of childcare for their children and that children of 6 and 7 are still vulnerable and still need support. The next prioirty is to ensure that the framework and standards for regulation are rigorous enough to ensure that childcare continues to be of the high quality needed. The new registration scheme must not be a route to dilution of quality.

“Regulation of childcare for over eights remains an outstanding issue – we would hope and expect provision to be made for this within the Government’s forthcoming Childcare Bill.”

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4Children response to deregulation of services in Childcare Bill Consultation:

4Children is extremely concerned over Government proposals in the Childcare Bill consultation to remove the legal requirement for non school based, group childcare for 5 – 8 year olds to meet quality standards and is urgent Government to revise their plans in this area. Removal of minimum standards presently set down in legislation has the potential to roll the clocks back to pre Children Act(1991) days of varied standards of care and be in direct contravention of the outcomes set out in Every Child Matters and Workforce Strategy.

4Children believes that the proposal to replace the statutory requirement for registration with a Voluntary Approval Scheme – the Ofsted Childcare Register would be inadequate in safeguarding the welfare of young children in childcare of this kind and threaten to undermine the delivery of the extended school programme and the viability of the offer to all parents and children of high quality out of school childcare. Whilst school based childcare will be registered as part of the school, community based provision would not be required to register.

The consequences of this decision would create severe issues such as

· Decrease in confidence of parents
Removing the requirement for robust quality standards has the potential to undermine confidence of parents in every way. Parents need particular reassurance about the quality of support for their younger children up to the age of 8, looking in particular at the ability of staff to respond to their child’s individual needs.

All experience shows that parents’ confidence in unregulated provision is low. Unregulated provision has the potential to become a service used solely by parents who have no choices, mostly parents from disadvantaged low income communities. The risk is there for it to become a sink rather than a positive service.

· Increase vulnerability of children and decrease positive outcomes
Children may suffer under new proposals by being placed in a position of risk under the supervision of unqualified staff and a variable quality environment. The opportunity to support children to develop their potential may be lost.

· Decrease in confidence of employers
4Children believes that up to 25% of employers could be providing childcare support for their staff over the next two years. They are only able and willing to do this because they have confidence in the quality control mechanisms in place. If these are removed they are likely to be extremely concerned over the viability of their scheme. This could undermine existing schemes and limit other employers’ willingness to get involved in childcare support.

· Decrease confidence of schools and their willingness in providing childcare
Prior to the Childcare Act (1991) schools consistently reported a reluctance to be involved in out of school childcare because of concerns over the quality of provision and the abilities of those who were running the schemes. Confidence has increased since the introduction of minimum legal requirements and improvements in the quality of staff working on schemes, all of whom are better trained and supported.

· Undermine and limit workforce development – reducing skills, recognition and pay and so reducing incentives to join or stay in the workforce
Reducing or removing quality requirements of staff has the potential to undermine the skill base of the workforce – bringing down standards of entry, recognition and ultimately pay. This move would be disastrous at such a key stage of the workforce expansion and would raise major concerns with unions and childcare workers. It would seriously damage the proposals to develop a new Childcare profession as working with older children would be seen as a secondary service to working with children under five years old: clearly undesirable, neither in the interests of children or the workforce.

The organisation will be consulting with out of school childcare groups as part of the consultation process feeding their response into Government.

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Read the Childcare Bill Consultation - October 2005:
A DfES Consultation on the Legislative Proposals for the Future of Childcare and Early Years Provision in England: Implementing the Ten Year Strategy for Childcare.

Please download the document below:

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