Nursery World - Danger to childminders and children

I am a working mother with two children under the age of five. I feel that if Ofsted was to place childminders' details on its website, this would have dire consequences for the safety of all the children in the care of each individual childminder (News, 3 April and 27 March). Logic says that if this information is freely available on the Ofsted website, paedophiles will have easy pickings, especially during the winter months when it is dark and the childminders collect the children from school.

Logic says that if this information is freely available on the Ofsted website, paedophiles will have easy pickings, especially during the winter months when it is dark and the childminders collect the children from school.

I also believe that the safety of the childminders themselves is in question as it only takes one person to watch a house and see a childminder's routine as she comes to and from her home - what I would call their safe haven - and this would make it easy pickings for burglars.

The whole concept of this is farcical and I believe that people's rights are being overlooked. As parents, we rely upon childminders to look after our children and believe that all efforts should be made to protect them and the children they care for. The Government talks about encouraging women to go back to work, but who honestly believes that something like this is going to encourage parents to leave their children with childminders, when the Government is not prepared to protect them or the people caring for them?

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