The letter asks Ofsted to change, with immediate effect, the way it regards childcare arrangements made between friends where there is no financial reward and 'where the motivation is one of mutual aid'. It asks that they be treated as beyond regulated childcare and exempt from regulation and registration.
Mr Balls wrote that the current legislation will be clarified to exclude reciprocal childcare arrangements from registration.
The announcement by Mr Balls comes after Nursery World broke the story of how two mothers working part-time in a jobshare were banned by Ofsted from caring for each other's children because they were not registered childminders (News, 24 September).
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