Today, The Children and Families Minister, Claire Coutinho, has written to housing associations, social landlords and developers in England, urging them to permit childminders to work in their rented properties which will help challenge the unfair barriers to those who rent or have leasehold properties, compared with those who own their own home. 

Find out more details about the announcement on the GOV.UK website.

PACEY Chief Executive, Helen Donohoe said: 

PACEY have long been campaigning on behalf of the wonderful childminders in our sector and reminding those in power of the eye-watering urgency of addressing the decline in childminder numbers.

So, we welcome Minister Coutinho’s intervention today in regard to the use of domestic premises for childminder businesses. It is an unnecessary blockage that we have long campaigned to have removed.

However, it is just one of the many obstacles that childminders face when setting up and trying to maintain their business. In fact, we receive daily messages from childminders who simply cannot go on. They feel neglected and taken for granted as a profession and for many the expansion of entitlement hours and other consequences of the Spring Budget announcements are the last straw.

So, while we welcome today’s move, we must reiterate that until we have a long term vision for early education with the sound, strategic investment that makes childminding a financially sustainable profession, we will struggle to retain and recruit the numbers needed to provide the brilliant home based, flexible and nourishing early education and childcare that they provide.