Nursery World - Struck off the list

Just when nannies are being urged to get Criminal Records Bureau clearance as a matter of course, many of the agencies putting them forward for checks are being deregistered by the CRB. Nanny agencies, playgroups, sports clubs and other groups that need fewer than 100 staff checks a year are being told they must instead pay a larger 'umbrella body' an extra fee to submit names to the CRB for them, at up to double the cost. Helen Kewley of the Cambridgeshire agency Nice Nannies Now says, 'What annoys me is that the big umbrella bodies I will now have to use still expect me to do the identity check and see the form is properly filled in. I do all the work and pay them for posting it to the CRB.' Maggie Dyer, who runs the London Au Pair and Nanny agency, says that many of her nannies looking for work already have had recent CRB clearance, so she would not need as many as 100 checks a year. So how many nannies will stop bothering to be checked - and wasn't the whole thing supposed to create greater child protection?

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