In a report for think tank CentreForum, Ms Truss, who has been leading calls for childcare deregulation, proposes a single childcare support payment for parents, relaxations on ratios for childminders, and academy status for nurseries and children's centres, as well as reiterating her proposals for agency-style regulation of childminders.
Ms Truss wrote about her ideas for childminder deregulation, which have prompted a campaign against them from the National Childminding Association, for Nursery World.
The key recommendations from the CentreForum report are:
Key recommendations from the report:
The UK should raise ratios for childminders to 5:1 for the under fives whilst improving supervision. This headroom would enable either higher paid staff to be attracted to the profession, improving quality, or alternatively make the service more affordable and widely available.
Childminders should be able to register with a local 'one stop shop', which could be an agency, nursery or network. These agencies and networks would be responsible for inspection and training. They would be regulated by Ofsted. This model already exists in the Netherlands which now has around twice as many childminders per head than the UK.
Nurseries and children's centres should be allowed to attain academy status, as schools are currently able to. This would mean money currently allocated to local authorities would go direct to academy nurseries.
A structure based on academies and agencies could mean a single childcare support payment for parents - replacing childcare tax credit, nursery vouchers and employer vouchers - so there would be less administration and leakage in the system.
Restrictions on informal care should be relaxed. If parents wish to pay neighbours or friends using their own money they should not be barred from doing so as they are at present (if they are not Ofsted registered). However, to ensure the child's safety anyone being paid to look after children should have a Criminal Records Bureau check.
Daycare Trust chief executive Anand Shukla said that deregulating childminders would not solve the UK's childcare problems.
'We do not believe that the model implemented in the Netherlands since 2005 has worked, and indeed many of the changes have been reversed. The Dutch reforms led to lower quality childcare, did not increase the number of high quality childminders in the profession, as the increase in numbers was largely due to grandparents registering as childminders; did not have a noticeable impact on maternal employment; and saw bureaucracy increase, due to the introduction of a layer of agencies.
'Daycare Trust welcomes the principle of more support for childminders and within this, networks are very valuable. However, direct regulation and accountability remain essential if childminders are to be respected as providing a professional service. We worry that removing them from the Ofsted inspection regime would mean parents lose confidence and risks childminders becoming perceived as a second-class service compared with nurseries.
'Proposals to alter the ratio of staff to children open up a debate on the trade-off between quality and quantity, and it should be made clear that it is unlikely that a change like this would act as a money saver to parents, as any extra income from higher numbers of children will be offset by the higher salaries paid to the childcarer.
'We do not believe that there is demand in the childcare sector for the changes being proposed today, as the recent Early Years Foundation Stage consultation illustrated. The consultation received 3,000 responses, but the issue of relaxing childminder entry rules was simply not something that featured highly.
'In looking at wider reform of the childcare system, Daycare Trust favours a move to more supply side funding, which would reduce the complexity that both parents and providers face. We believe it is vital that parents and crucially childminders themselves are listened to in taking forward any proposals. In order to really tackle the childcare crisis, the government must start by reversing the cut to the childcare element of Working Tax Credit last year which has left many low income families £500 a year worse off.'
