Plan to publish childminders’ addresses ‘puts children in danger’.

Plans to publish the addresses of childminders have led to
claims that thousands of children may face increased risks,
writes Amy Taylor.

From April 1, the education regulator Ofsted plans to publish
the home addresses and inspection reports of the 70,000
childminders in Britain on their website – a move that the National
Childminding Association argues would put children at risk.

Gill Haynes, chief executive of the Association said: “Ofsted
have misread what childminding is about, which is about keeping
children safe.

“There’s a real concern about actually being on your own with a
group of small children and protecting them. Parents don’t want to
have where their children are staying put on the world-wide
web.

“At the time when parents are looking for flexible local
childcare, we appear to have a load of bureaucratic decisions that
put children in danger.”

Ofsted’s also plans to include introducing a grading system to
assess childminders’ work. If childminders score highly in this
they could no longer be required to be inspected annually, a
regulation that currently applies to everyone in the
profession.

The government run Children’s Information Service already
contains details of childminders on its website, but these don’t
include their home address in full and they are given the choice of
whether to have this information published – 70 per cent in some
areas choose not to do so.

Ofsted said they were attempting to give parents as much
information as possible.

“Ofsted takes the view that to encourage parents to use
high-quality registered childminders, it intends to make childcare
reports available on the website from April,” said a
spokesperson.

“Remember that school reports are already on the website,
nursery education reports are on the website. The principle is not
new.”