Schedule 7 - Inspection of child minding, day care and nursery education
Education Bill [Lords]
11:00 am
Mr John Pugh (Education Spokesperson, Education & Skills; Southport, Liberal Democrat)
The schedule is important because child minding is an important aspect of many people’s lives. There have been some horrific stories of child minding being done badly. We have all seen television broadcasts that show that services can be poor if they are not inspected properly. Parents can be the last people to know exactly how bad those services are. Therefore, they need some guarantee or warranty from the inspection service to show that the service that they are using is of good quality.
It is self-evident that not everyone should be allowed to take up child minding. We would not, for example, give King Herod a licence. However, I have from time to time as a constituency MP come across cases in which people have invested significantly in child minding ventures. They have had plans for the future and have had every intention of performing a good, professional and caring service. However, occasionally, they have had difficulties because of what inspectors said and have believed that the verdict was partial.
There needs to be a very good assessment and a very good result, but there also needs to be an appropriate, reasonable and robust appeal mechanism to deal with occasions when the assessment is disputed and people believe that the service that they provide has been unfairly criticised. I am not asking for any latitude for people who provide a bad service, but we want to ensure fairness for those people who believe that they provide a good service but who may not, at first blush, impress inspectors.