Nursery World - Half of pilot childminder agencies will not set up shop

An investigation into the pilot childminder agencies by Nursery
World has revealed that half of the 20 organisations that trialled
models will not be going ahead with their agency in September.

A further four are still unsure about how they are going to proceed.

Of the 17 organisations that responded to Nursery World, ten - including two that pulled out of the trial early - said they are not planning on opening an agency in September after taking part in the Department for Education's (DfE) pilot. The majority of these are local authorities, some of which already have childminder support in place.

Twenty organisations were chosen by the DfE to take part in the trial of childminder agencies. They have been piloting agency models since last summer.

Reasons given by the organisations for not going ahead with an agency include not having enough support from the DfE, a lack of time or money to fully develop a model and limited interest from childminders.

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