EY: DfE Childminder consultation: closing Friday 10 May 2024

This consultation aims to address childminder recruitment and retention issues including the registration process for new childminders and monthly payments to childminders providing the free entitlements. The DfE welcome childminders, those that work with them, parents, local authorities and all early years providers to take part.

See message below from DfE

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We are also delighted to announce the launch of our new childminder consultation. See our full press release here.

Our childminder consultation marks an important part of our cross-sector efforts to do more to recruit and retain more childminders, recognising the important role they play in the childcare sector providing high quality, flexible, entitlements and wraparound childcare.  

The consultation seeks your views on three proposals which aim to address the issues that childminders have told us are important to them:  

• simplifying the registration process for new childminders by allowing a wider range of regulated healthcare professionals within a GP surgery to complete new childminder health declarations;  
• ensuring local authorities pay entitlements funding monthly where this is the provider’s preference;  
• offering flexibilities to childminder agencies to enable them to thrive and grow.

The consultation also seeks to gather evidence on a range of other issues that impact childminder recruitment and retention such as property barriers, and support for childminders to remain in the profession. This forms just part of our ongoing work to support childminders to continue delivering a fantastic standard of childcare and soon our transformative entitlements expansion and wraparound programmes.    

The consultation will be open for 8-weeks running from 9am on 15 March until 11.59pm on 10 May.  

Childminder recruitment and retention consultation - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)  

We welcome responses from childminders, those that work with and represent them, parents and local authorities. We also want to hear from all early year providers, as we will consider ensuring that LAs pay entitlements funding to all early year's providers monthly if there is a clear appetite for this from all providers.   

We welcome your support in sharing the consultation as widely as possible, including on social media.  

Thank you to everyone who has engaged with us so far. We are happy to discuss the consultation in more detail so please do let us know if you have any events taking place during the consultation period (15 March-10 May) that you would like us to attend or speak at.