According to a new Department for Education survey, the childminding profession has lost 10 per cent of its workforce in the last year – it paints a shocking picture, but is it an accurate one?
Whenever data like this is released, I find myself scanning for one crucial statement. Just a few paragraphs into this most recent report, I spot it: ‘childminders registered with a childminder agency are not included in the survey.’ It’s a simple sentence, but one that holds so much meaning.
It’s no secret that Ofsted has been haemorrhaging childminders for years. Annual reports point to a consistent downward trend in workforce numbers.
It might not be a surprise then that this latest headline-grabbing statistic has prompted some to warn that the childminding profession may soon cease to exist. But talk of a childminder exodus misleadingly ignores the fact that Childminder Agencies (CMAs) are retaining and recruiting strong numbers. We can’t have practical conversations about the future of the sector if we’re not looking at the full picture.
There’s too much at stake to have tunnel vision. New research estimates that the Government’s pledge to expand the free childcare entitlement to under-twos will require an extra 100,000 childcare workers over the next two years.
This policy – intended as a lifeline for struggling parents – hinges on a massive recruitment drive. To achieve that, we have to be realistic about the routes that actually draw talent into the sector. For the last few years, that’s been agencies.
tiney, for example, recruited over 530 new childminders in 2023, with over 1,000 more in training. In total, our childminders offered over 5,400 childcare spaces this year. To put that into context, that’s over 400 naps taken a day, over 8,000 meals prepared a week, and 20,000 nappies changed a month.
Our incredible practitioners brought so much value to families in their local communities this year, but these statistics won’t feature in Ofsted reports or be referenced in warnings about the collapse of childminding.
We can all agree that the childminding profession has long been overlooked within the wider childcare sector – but we are only exaggerating this disregard when we ignore agencies and the wonderful practitioners they represent.
If we seriously want to revive childminder numbers, we need to recognise the role agencies already play and imagine what they could do within a fairer system.
CMAs conduct more regular inspections and provide the kind of hands-on assistance welcomed by newcomers but are not entitled to the financial support given to Ofsted. CMA-registered childminders have to pay for their own regulation; something no other educators, including Ofsted childminders, have to do. There’s no clear rationale for this. We already saw how ineffective regulatory structures can stall growth when Koru Kids was forced to suspend its childminding arm earlier in the year.
While the re-introduction of startup grants for new childminders is absolutely a step in the right direction, larger scale recruitment will require the Government to remove the steep financial burdens placed on CMAs, who have consistently proven to be more effective proponents of childminding than Ofsted and can reach far more diverse talent.
But we do not need to be alarmist about the state of childminding. There are many reasons to be hopeful about the profession’s future and, ultimately, it’s a wonderful, fulfilling career that appeals to so many people when the right support is on offer.
We just need to find the right ways to communicate that. When we take stock of what is and isn’t working, the answer is clear. The Government needs to embrace CMAs as an engine of recruitment and retention. The longer we delay, the greater the risk of letting down parents across the country and depriving yet another generation of affordable childcare.