The criticism was made by CRY, the Campaign for the Registration of all those Working with Children and Young People. At a meeting in Westminster last week the pressure group renewed its call for the Government to implement a national register of all childcarers, including nannies, who are currently the only unregistered form of provision.
Rowan Dickman, director of the Institute for Childcare and Social Education, and a member of CRY, said, 'I am concerned that not a great deal has altered since we started campaigning five years ago for a national register and a professional childcare service. When we first started our aim was to get a national registration scheme that would have a central database which could track all care workers in the country. This, coupled with a national training scheme that would set and maintain standards, would go some way to forming a safe, professional childcare service.'
He was also concerned about the delayed Criminal Records Bureau, which now will not come onstream until next spring at the earliest, and the accuracy of its data. Mr Dickman said, 'Despite highlighting the need for a registration scheme that would track workers, set up a database em- ployers could tap into, and monitor standards, the Government is relying on police checks through the CRB and the health department consultancy index. Relying on police checks assumes that any premeditated abusers will have a criminal record and this clearly is not the case.'
CRY spokeswoman Tricia Pritchard said, 'The Government is continuing its national recruitment drive to attract more people into childcare without any proper knowledge of who they are and with no insistence that nannies caring for children in the child's own home are subject to police checks, or any checks at all.'
CRY pointed out that a kite mark scheme for nanny agencies announced as a safeguard for children almost two years ago by Margaret Hodge, then the minister responsible for early years, has still not been implemented. Julie Morgan, Labour MP for Cardiff North who was at the meeting, said she gave her 'very strong' support to the campaign for national registration. 'As things stand, this is an area that is wide open to abuse,' she said.
A Department for Education and Skills spokeswoman said, 'It is not the Government's intention to extend a national registration requirement to nannies and others who care for children in the home.'
