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Leading membership organisation, the Early Years Alliance has issued a comment on the government proposals, announced today, which aim to increase the number of childminders operating in England. These are:

• Reducing the upfront costs of becoming a childminder via financial support;
• Allowing childminders to spend more of their time working from a greater range of locations – for example a local community centre or village hall rather than their own home;
• Giving childminders greater flexibilities within the ratios when looking after their own children or siblings of other children;
• Working with аÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÙÍø¿ª½± to reduce inspection of childminders; and
• Slimming down the childminder specific Early Years Foundation Stage, reducing the framework by one-third to ensure content is targeted and simpler to navigate.

Commenting, Neil Leitch, CEO of the Early Years Alliance, said:

"Childminders, just like those who work in nurseries and pre-schools, are education professionals who provide vital learning and development opportunities for the children in their care. It is incredibly concerning therefore that so many of the government proposals published today to encourage more childminders to remain in the sector risk undermining the professionalism that this part of the sector has worked so hard to have recognised.

"While the government may have, at long last, realised that it needs to take action to tackle the huge decline in childminder numbers over recent years, retrograde steps like reducing the number of inspections, creating a separate, streamlined EYFS and wasting more energy on the damp squib of a policy that is childminder agencies are simply not the solution.

"If ministers really wanted to stem the flow of childminders out of the sector, they would have focused on changes that recognised and valued them as early years professionals, equal to those who work in nursery and pre-school settings. Much of what has been announced today does the exact opposite."