Rutland Early Years Agency, which has approximately 766 members based across 109 local authorities, was inspected by Ofsted between 31 October to 4 November 2022 and judged to be ‘ineffective’ in all areas.
Unlike individually registered childminders, those who are registered with an agency do not hold their own inspection grade. When a childminder agency is found to be ‘ineffective’ local authorities have the power to stop members’ funding, as they would if an individual childminder is rated inadequate. It is down to local authorities’ discretion whether they allow childminders registered with an ‘ineffective’ agency to continue to offer funded hours.
Rutland Early Years Agency, which is one of seven agencies currently operating, told Nursery World that they are ‘still in active dialogue with all the relevant local authorities’, and their ‘absolute priority is to protect the vital operations of their brilliant childminders between now and re-inspection.’
If a childminder agency is judged to be ‘ineffective’ it is reinspected within six to 12 months of the date of the inspection judgement.
According to Rutland Early Years Agency’s Ofsted report, during its inspection, ‘a serious safeguarding breach was identified which has a significant impact on the assessment of child protection procedures used by the agency’s childminders and of the leadership team’s own internal monitoring systems.’
It goes on to state, ‘The processes used by the leadership team to monitor the quality of childminders' knowledge and practice are not strong enough to continually raise the standards of education and care for young children.
However, it does acknowledge that, ‘Leaders have used their enforcement powers as a regulator successfully in many cases. This includes suspending the registration of childminders when there is a reasonable belief that children may be at risk of harm.’
A spokesperson for Rutland Early Years said, ‘We were surprised and incredibly disappointed by this [inspection] report, but we respect the outcome and have already begun implementing a detailed plan to address the points raised. We are taking this extremely seriously.
‘It’s very important to stress that this report isn’t a judgement on any of the individual childminders registered with us.
‘As an agency, we have grown very quickly over recent years and acknowledge that some of our systems and processes haven’t kept pace with this growth. We look forward to demonstrating our progress when Ofsted re-inspect in the coming months and we’re confident that this rating will be upgraded then.
‘Right now, making sure that our individual childminders can continue to offer their exceptional services to families across the UK is an absolute priority. We’re proactively engaging with the relevant local authorities to ensure they take practical, pragmatic decisions around funding between now and our next inspection. There is no obligation on Local Authorities to remove any funding and we hope local decision makers also put the childminders and continuity of children’s care first and take the steps needed to safeguard the funding of these vital childcare places whilst we await re-inspection.’
One Derbyshire childminder registered with the agency told Nursery World, ‘Personally, I have loved every moment of working under Rutland early years. I've worked in the childcare sector for 18 years now, and everywhere I have worked Ofsted visits were dreaded.
‘There has been none of that panic in the four years I've been with Rutland. The agency has always treated me as an equal who is completely capable of doing her job. I have always felt supported and part of an excellent community while with Rutland.
‘The current situation is unfortunate, but now it has happened we must just make the best of it. I have every faith that the Rutland team will make the appropriate changes and pull their grade around by their next inspection. I personally will be remaining with the agency.’
She said that Derbyshire local authority have yet to decide what to do funding with impacted childminders.
The childminder added, ‘I believe the guidance needs changing to be based on the individual grade a childminder carries, rather than their agencies’ grade.’