Under a joint agreement, Scotland's biggest police force and its care watchdog will share information regarding childcare providers to make sure that nurseries are not being used as a business front for organised crime. The Care Commission will use police information when carrying out checks on would-be nursery owners, managers and staff when they apply to register childcare facilities.
The initiative follows concerns raised last year when 12 nurseries in and around Glasgow were investigated by police amid suspicions that they had links to organised criminals (News, 12 May 2010).
Detectives said they believed the businesses, which were not named, could have been involved in laundering cash from drugs and extortion rackets by creating 'ghost children', who show up on the books, and whose parents pay in cash, but in reality do not exist.
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