In March the Commission invited people such as nursery nurses or those with first-hand knowledge of running, using or working for a nanny agency to join its Short-Life Advisory Group on Childcare Agencies. Ronnie Hill, regional manager for the Care Commission's South-East Region, said that the group was being set up to help the Commission 'gather a rounded view' about the inspection and regulation of nanny agencies under the proposed national standards for childcare. The standards are currently in draft form and are awaiting approval from the Scottish Executive following the May elections.
Meanwhile, south of the border, representatives of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) met with Sure Start minister Catherine Ashton on Monday to discuss the setting up of a register of excluded nannies similar to List 99 for teachers. REC, which represents some but not all nanny agencies in England, said it was 'imperative' that the details of nannies who had mistreated children in the past were placed on an exclusion register and that such a register was run by the Department for Education and Skills.
Peter Cullimore, chair of the REC childcare division, said it was making the move because efforts to persuade the Government to set up a national register of nannies had been unsuccessful. He said, 'Just as there isn't a list of all teachers - only an exclusion list, List 99 - so too there should be a list of excluded nannies.
'It is vital that children are protected from unscrupulous nannies. No regulatory scheme is going to prevent every incident from happening, but we hope that this register will have a major effect in preventing many of the horror stories that we hear.'
A register of nannies has also come a step closer with the first reading in Parliament of the Regulation of Childcare Providers Bill. The Bill, which would apply to England and Wales, was presented last month by Geraint Davies, Labour MP for Croydon Central in Surrey, who is the constituency MP for Ken and Libby Osborne, whose eight-month-old son was shaken to death by his childminder, Linda Bayfield. They only found out afterwards that she had had a history of complaints made against her.
The Bill receives its second reading on 13 June.
