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Job-share women are told their childminding arrangement is illegalNicola Woolcock
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Two women who work part-time for the same company have been told that they cannot care for each other’s child unless they register as childminders and undergo Ofsted inspections.

The women, who wish to remain anonymous, gave birth to girls at similar times. They set up a job share, with both working half a week in the same post. They are also close friends, so when one was at work the other cared for both children.

Ofsted, however, has put an end to the arrangement. It said that, according to legislation, caring for another person’s child “for reward” was classed as childminding. This means that both mothers will have to register with Ofsted and follow the same regulations as normal childminders. The financial “reward” they receive is free care for their daughters.

A protest petition on the Downing Street website had gathered almost 1,700 signatures by last night. The Open Eye group, which campaigns for fewer restrictions on childminders, wants the meaning of “reward” to be changed to money or gifts. Kim Simpson, one of the campaigners, said: “Something akin to a kind of anxiety-driven psychosis seems to have engulfed government policymaking in the realms of children and family life.”


Ofsted said: “The law sets out that childminding requires registration where a person cares for one or more children for reward, and at least one child attends for more than two hours in any one day.”

The Government indicated last night that Ofsted could be made to withdraw its opposition to the women’s childcare arrangements.

Vernon Coaker, the Children’s Minister, said: “We need to be sure that the legislation does not penalise hard-working families. My department is discussing with Ofsted the interpretation of the word ‘reward’.”

The creeping invasion of the state into what was once the preserve of the family and the individual – the databases, the intrusive checks, the inevitably disastrous attempts by bureaucrats to engage in social engineering through the promiscuous use of shoddy legislation and lazily-devised "initiatives" – has become so much a feature of modern life that most of us no longer notice it. Until the day it comes knocking at the door.

For Detective Constable Leanne Shepherd, that day was Friday July 10 of this year when an official from the Office of Standards in Education (Ofsted) called at her home in Milton Keynes, Bedfordshire. A CID officer in Thames Valley Police, she was enjoying a day off with her daughter, Edie, just two-and-a-half years old, when the bell rang.

“She was really lovely, the Ofsted lady,” remembers DC Shepherd. “She said there was a report that I was child-minding illegally. When I asked her what she meant – was I committing a criminal offence or something - she said she wasn’t 100 per cent sure.”

DC Shepherd’s alleged "crime" – and even in the age of the nanny-state-gone-wild, this takes some beating – was to have embarked on an arrangement with her friend, colleague and job-sharing partner, DC Lucy Jarrett, by which they took turns to look after each other’s daughter during days off. It was, according to both women, a “perfect” arrangement that lasted more than two years and allowed them to pursue challenging careers part-time (they conduct investigations together), and spend sufficient time with their first-borns in the years when they needed their mothers most.

There was no rigid pattern to the arrangement – its virtue was its flexibility – but it was reciprocal: each woman received a benefit in the form of two, and occasionally more, days of free child care during most weeks of the year. This supposedly violates the Childcare Act of 2006, which prohibits adults not registered as child-minders looking after other people’s children for more than two hours a day for reward – the reward being the free care.

Ofsted had been tipped off by someone who must have lived near to DC Shepherd’s house because the Ofsted woman talked of cars coming and going from her property.

“I was in shock the whole time,” remembers the police officer. “I couldn’t imagine I was doing something wrong – I thought I could clear it up if I told her everything. She talked about reciprocal care; I argued that it was an arrangement based on friendship.”

DC Shepherd pointed out that during her maternity leave she had looked after DC Jarrett’s daughter Amy, who is six months older than Edie, purely as an act of kindness. She had received no reciprocal child care at that time.

“She (the Ofsted official) said, 'I’m just going to check’ and went out to her car to use the phone. She came back and said, 'You are. You’re breaking the law’.

“Even when she left, I thought that there must be some mistake. I was angry that someone could complain about me – that someone could be so petty – and shocked that what we were doing could be wrong, and that I would have to change everything.”

Seventeen days later a letter arrived from Ofsted ordering DC Shepherd to stop minding Amy immediately, and warning her that she might be subject to surveillance and unannouced visits by Ofsted inspectors.

“I thought it was laughable that they would go the extreme of using surveillance when I was trying to live my life and do my job,” she says, still upset at her treatment.

DC Shepherd, 32, has been single since the end of her relationship with Edie’s father, also a police officer, in November last year. He remains supportive, but without DC Jarrett’s help there is no chance of Edie staying out at home while her mother is on duty, and she has had to be put into a nursery.

“Amy and Edie get on like sisters – they have grown up together. You would always hear them saying 'you’re my best friend’, 'I’m your best friend’. They are only-children, so it was nice for them to have each other around.

“Edie went to nursery today and cried her eyes out. It has happened too quickly for her. I haven’t been able to introduce her to it gently. She has still not settled properly – she barely eats there. She asks, 'Can I see Amy today?’ A two-year-old is not going to understand.”

The enforced change has not only caused her daughter deep distress but has actually cost the government money. DC Shepherd earns just over £16,000 a year for working part-time, with a take-home wage of £1,000 per month. Edie’s nursery fees are £487 a month.

“The irony is that the state is now having to pay most of my child care because I am a single mother on a low income who works part-time and eligible for working tax credit and 80 per cent of my child care costs. They pay me nearly £500 a month, whereas before they didn’t have to pay me anything.

“The government is trying to promote the return of mothers to work and doing this at the same time.”

She now works less flexibly because she must be available to pick Edie up from nursery, which places more strain on her colleagues in the CID.

DS Jarrett, also 32, who lives in Buckingham, is better off than her friend – her husband Robert, an inspector with Thames Valley, earns a good salary and shares much of the child-caring burden. In addition, Amy, now three-and-a-half, is entitled to five days a week in pre-school free of charge. But she is still incensed by what has happened.

“It’s horrible. I had to sit down, I was so shocked. I thought it was a joke or something.

“Amy and Edie don’t understand why they can’t see each other. My daughter drew a picture at pre-school for Edie and wants to take it to her, and the answer is, no. We are too scared to get them together in case someone sees us. How would it be if Edie came for a play session and an Ofsted inspector turned up?

And, indeed, one has. Inspector Jarrett complained to Ofsted after one of its inspectors turned up at the family home.

“We are obviously very concerned, being police officers, about accusations of breaking the law,” says DC Jarrett. “It is not pleasant heading out of the house with the feeling that someone is watching. Child protection is paramount but situations like ours should be looked at on their own merits. If my friend, who I trust completely and utterly, can look after my daughter, and I am happy with that, then that is something I should be allowed to do.

“Thousands and thousands of people are in exactly the same situation. The government was benefiting because we were both able to work and pay tax.

“As an adult and a mother, I can decide for myself – I don’t remember the government being around during my pregnancy and the birth.”

The Childcare Act was hailed as an example of “truly pioneering education” but is turning out to be yet another example of bodged legislation. Margaret Morrissey, of the campaign group Partents Outloud, says: “This Big Brother attitude to children and parents has got to stop. If we have reached a point in our society when we cannot trust our very close friends to look after each other’s children, it is time to give up and go and live in another country.”

Ofsted was refusing to be drawn on the subject yesterday, saying it was reviewing its interpretation of the legislation. Children’s minister Vernon Coaker said his department was consulting with Ofsted.

“I always thought, what is the point of having children if you send them straight to nursery full time,” says DC Shepherd. “Lucy and I would not change back now because the children have been upset enough.

“I understand the need for child protection, but this is being applied too strictly. We need a common-sense approach.”

DC Jarrett adds: “This is crazy, ridiculous. What was our gain, our reward? Being allowed to return to work to pay tax? It has been a horrible few months, I would not want anyone else to be put through this.”

Vernon Coaker, the Children’s Minister, said: “We need to be sure that the legislation does not penalise hard-working families. My department is discussing with Ofsted the interpretation of the word ‘reward’.”

It's just another example of how this government has lost the plot and needs voting out.

What is more, particularly on the issue of pre-school child care, getting ever younger children under the controll of "State approved" educators/carers so that the children can be suitably indoctrinated with approved concepts at an early age and irrespective of the Parents views, is a dream come true for the controll freaks. (Poll Pot, Stalin and even Hitler took every oppertunity to take young people out of their parents controll!)

I am a "state approved" educator I and people in my department (and school) do not indoctrinate with a approved concepts. Just because we are in education doesn't mean we tow the party line so to speak. We can think for ourselves.

I think this story is just a self important OFSTED peoson, showing how much power they have.