21 February 2003
Ofsted, the schools' inspectorate, has insisted that it will meet its March deadline to inspect and register all childminders and nurseries, despite a growing backlog of checks.
A spokeswoman told Public Finance that an unexpected glut of checks at the Criminal Records Bureau had caused the delays, but insisted that inspectors would be on top of the backlog by March.
Ofsted took over child care inspections from local authorities in September 2001 and now has responsibility for registering childminders, full day care, sessional care, crèches and out-of-school care.
A new national standard was introduced to bring all child care providers under one regime. Now, all day-care providers have been inspected with a single consistent system and their data collated and recorded on a central national database.
The pressure has been added by the government's determination to increase the numbers of nurseries and childminders. It has pledged to create 900,000 new places for 1.6 million children by 2004, including free nursery places for all three-and four-year-olds.
The previous system had involved checking applicants with a number of different bodies. The Ofsted spokeswoman said: 'We do not have to consult a whole series of lists now and the CRB is a one-stop shop in that sense. We are having teething problems but the system will work better in future.'
But early years' experts fear the delays will drive childminders out of the profession and the Daycare Trust warned that the long wait meant some parents would be forced to fall back on unregistered childminders.
Director Stephen Burke said the delay 'was worrying news for parents who had their expectations raised by the promised expansion'.
PFfeb2003
