The admission by the independent inspectorate of a 'semantic' legal loophole allowing people to work as unregistered childminders has worried early years organisations. An Ofsted spokeswoman said of the loophole, 'It's a matter of semantics, but it is not technically against the law to work as an unregistered childminder. But once an enforcement notice is issued against such a person, then it is.'
The admission was made after Ofsted's Early Years Directorate prosecuted its first unregistered childminder since taking over the registration and inspection of childcare in England a year ago. On 2 September at Hammersmith and Fulham magistrates court in London, Bernadette Collins of Edith Road in West Kensington was fined 1,500 and ordered to pay Ofsted's court costs of around 1,000 after she pleaded guilty to unregistered childminding.
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