Maggie Smith, director of early years at Ofsted, fielded questions from delegates about long delays for criminal record checks on staff and inconsistencies in inspections. She said the transfer of duties from local authorities in England had been a 'huge logistical change' but that Ofsted was clearing the backlog and was on track to complete targets by next year.
Ms Smith added, 'In the past six months we have had to hit the ground running and maintain processes. There have been a lot of new initiatives, and along with that there have been a lot of nurseries wanting to expand and applications from nurseries wanting to register. These have been a high priority as we try not to be a bar to the National Childcare Strategy's expansion aims.
'We have to properly ascertain whether premises and people are suitable and are doing that as efficiently as we can.'
She admitted that Ofsted had been surprised by its initial workload. In the first six months since September it received 12,200 applications to register, 8,617 applications to vary registration, 23,548 transitional inspections and 3,641 investigations of complaints about providers. It conducted 11 pilots of combined care and funded education inspections.
Also at the conference, school standards minister Stephen Timms affirmed the Government's commitment to the private sector and the importance of the NDNA's commitment to raising standards through its Quality Counts accreditation scheme. He congratulated the latest nine day nurseries to achieve accreditation -Sandfield Day Nursery, Oxford; Meir Park Day Nursery, Stoke-on-Trent; Nene Valley Day Nursery, Northamptonshire; Cliff House Nursery School, Preston; Nippers Children's Day Nursery, Carnforth; Hollingworth Day Nursery, Cumbria; TLC, Walgrave; Puffins, Sowton; and Puffins, Torbay.