Is the Government once again pushing nanny registration out of the back door? Mary Evans looks at the arguments against its latest plans for parents to claim tax relief
Ministers might have expected the Government's plan to extend the help it gives parents with childcare costs to include carers working in the family home to be applauded. Instead, it has been met with accusations of prejudice and discrimination.
Previously the childcare tax element of the Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC) was available only for parents using forms of registered care provided outside the home, such as a nursery or a childminder. The Chancellor's belated recognition in this year's Budget that many families opt to have their children cared for in their own homes has been welcomed. However, the proposed solution has been derided and denounced, because it excludes nannies unless they first become registered childminders.
A consultation document, Supporting the cost of home-based childcare, issued by the Government last month, proposes extending the childcare tax credit element of WFTC from next April to parents using a new form of approved childcare: home childcarers. They would first have to be a registered childminder before applying to Ofsted for approval to take on this new role. The document also proposes conferring home childcarer status on domiciliary careworkers and nurses employed by agencies, who from September will be registered by the National Care Standards Commission, when looking after children at home.
In a foreword to the document, early years minister Baroness Ashton notes that while formal childcare services are geared to the working week, more than 60 per cent of families have at least one parent working outside the traditional Monday-to-Friday, nine-to-five hours, which is why the Government is introducing the change.
According to the latest statistics from the Inland Revenue, childcare tax credit, at an average value of 39 per week, is claimed by 158,000 families, of which 142,000 are single-parent families. However, an Inland Revenue spokesman says the Revenue has no figures on how many families are expected to benefit from the new extension, or by how much.
Although nanny agencies and representatives are pleased the Government has accepted the principle that many families rely on care at home, and need help with its costs, they will submit some firm responses to the document before the consultation exercise closes on 31 August.
They see the plan as an insult to the integrity and professionalism of nannies and a missed opportunity to establish a national nanny register. The fact that the Government did not consult them when drawing up the document and omitted them from the official list of bodies to be consulted only adds to their indignation.
They believe ministers see nannies as trappings of wealth, working only in the homes of the rich and famous. Many nannies do work for families whose income puts them beyond the qualifying criteria for WFTC, but a significant number care for the children of shiftworkers, such as nurses, doctors and police officers, and parents who for financial and other reasons do not use childminders or nurseries. As one commentator put it, the Government seems to think nannies are only employed by people who appear in Hello! and not by people who read it.
Complicated solution
Tricia Pritchard, PANN professional officer and spokesperson for the childcarer registration campaign CRY, says, 'The Government has finally recognised that many people, because of their lifestyle, require childcare in their own homes. The Royal College of Nursing has said the lack of adequate affordable out-of-hours childcare is one of the reasons that so few nurses are returning to work.
'At long last the penny has dropped with the Government. But they seem to be hell-bent on making the solution as complicated as possible. It is as if they have a blindness where nannies are concerned. It is a stupid, outdated prejudice that only well-to-do people employ nannies.
'In Derby, a full-time nursery place is 180 a week, but you can get a nanny on take-home pay of 150 a week. If you have two children aged under five, it's clearly cheaper to employ a nanny.'
Peter Cullimore, chairman of the childcare division of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, says, 'Families with disabled children and families working shifts have been struggling to meet the costs of childcare. It really is encouraging that there is the prospect of them getting this tax credit, but the way the Government has planned it at the moment, so that anyone who employs a nanny would be unable to claim this help, is basic discrimination.'
Observers wondered if the home childcarer document would create a rift between the nanny and childminding organisations. But NCMA chief executive Gill Haynes is at pains to be conciliatory. 'I think people who are working with nannies at the moment need to see this as a positive step forward. I think this is a move towards what everyone wants - a totally regulated childcare sector,' she says.
Unwilling workforce
Initial reactions to the document included fears that many of the country's more than 100,000 nannies could lose their jobs as parents switched to home childcarers to gain the tax credit. But neither Tricia Pritchard nor Peter Cullimore think that many of the UK's 75,000 childminders will want to go to work in other people's homes.
Tricia Pritchard says, 'The reason the majority of childminders became childminders was because it allows them to work from home and fit their work around their own family. Originally when I read this document, I thought there were going to be so many nannies out of work because of this. On reflection, and having spoken to nannies and childminders, I don't think that will happen, because childminders are not going to be pushed into working in other people's homes.'
Gill Haynes says she does not know how many childminders will want to work in clients' homes or sleep over when parents work nights. 'We have childminders looking after children for parents who work non-standard hours. The latest workforce survey shows it is only childminders, within the regulated sector, who provide weekend cover in any substantial way. Nine per cent of the childminders surveyed provided weekend care, which gives you a sense of what the flexibility might be. It is double or treble any other part of the regulated childcare sector.'
There are further practical objections to the plans. According to the consultation paper, home childcarers will be subject to 'ongoing monitoring' by Ofsted, including inspections of them at work - in the child's home. Such home inspections would place a further burden on Ofsted's Early Years Directorate, which is only in its first year of inspecting to the new national care standards. And the Government has long been reluctant to establish a nanny register because it was wary of invading people's privacy and did not want to run a regime inspecting private homes.
Will parents accept inspection of their homes? Gill Haynes says, 'That's for negotiation. It is part of the consultation document. At the moment nobody knows whether parents would want anyone to inspect their homes. The presumption is they would not.'
Instead, Peter Cullimore proposes a solution taking account of two initiatives that the Government has in the pipeline. 'Under new procedures to be introduced for the Criminal Records Bureau, nanny agencies are going to be able to register with the CRB and be able to get enhanced checks, like those that are necessary for childminders and others who are working in contact with children.
There are also going to be some new employment agency regulations and we are promised there is going to be a code of practice for nanny agencies. It would not seem beyond possibility for the Government to say that if nanny agencies can comply fully with the code of practice and carry out the CRB checks on nannies, then these nannies could be considered to be approved home childcarers. There could be a requirement that they have a qualification of at least the equivalent of an NVQ Level 2, and that should ensure that the tax credit only goes to families using qualified childcare.'
