Would you hire this nanny?
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Not quite the nanny from hell, but the nanny agencies from hell were exposed this month by the consumer protection magazine Which? when it sent one of its researchers to approach 20 agencies, posing as a nanny. Rosie Fletcher (pictured) told the agencies that she had no qualifications and that her only childcare experience had been as an occasional babysitter. She said, 'I was surprised that a quarter of the agencies were prepared to accept me, given that I had no qualifications and so little experience.'
She said, 'I was surprised that a quarter of the agencies were prepared to accept me, given that I had no qualifications and so little experience.'
Some failed to ask for references or a criminal records check before offering to put her forward for jobs. Among the negligent agencies - no names were mentioned - were members of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. But the chair of the REC's childcare division, Elizabeth Elder, took issue with the Which? research. 'This nanny was not taken on by any REC member agent or recommended to any family and did not have an interview arranged,' she argued.
And nannies know only too well that both bad and good practice abound among agencies, but stories like this tend to tar nannies themselves with the same brush in the public's mind - when they are not to blame for agencies'
behaviour.
Still, will inspectors for the the Department for Trade and Industry have to take this undercover approach to catch out agencies that breach the new regulations that came into force last April, under which they have to obtain references and check a candidate's qualifications and suitability?
