Protect Home Based Childcare
The independent childminding profession is currently facing unprecedented risks. Sweeping regulatory changes from the Department for Education and Ofsted, combined with mounting financial pressures from HMRC and other external forces, are pushing our sector to absolute breaking point.
Dedicated, highly trained early years professionals are being forced to leave the profession in record numbers because the bureaucratic and financial burdens have simply become too heavy to carry alone. It is time to stand together and protect the vital service we provide to our communities.
Why Childminders Are Irreplaceable
Independent childminders offer an absolutely unique and essential form of early years education. We do not operate like large commercial nurseries, and that is exactly why families choose us. We provide a true home away from home environment where children benefit from quiet, nurturing, one to one focus.
Our incredible flexibility allows us to seamlessly blend early education with real world experiences. We offer a rich, active, and dynamic lifestyle that helps children truly thrive. On any given day, our mindees might be:
Engaging in the real life routine of the daily school runs with older siblings.
Exploring local woodlands, splashing in puddles, and learning about nature first hand.
Visiting community hubs, farm parks, libraries, and museums.
Developing deep, lasting bonds in a consistent, mixed age family dynamic.
We champion inclusive care, adapt our environments to the highly specific needs of every single child, and build genuine, lasting partnerships with the working families who rely on us.
How You Can Help
We cannot afford to let this incredible profession be regulated out of existence. On this page, you will find campaigns, resources, and practical steps we can all take together to push back against impossible blanket rules and protect the future of home based childcare.
The Devastating Loss of the Wear and Tear Allowance
Unlike commercial nurseries, we open our personal family homes to the children we care for. Naturally, daily active play takes a massive toll on our carpets, sofas, toys, and equipment. Previously, this vital tax allowance recognized the unique reality of running a home based business. Now, practitioners are expected to absorb the total cost of repairing and replacing these items out of their own pockets, right in the middle of a crippling cost of living crisis.
This incredible financial strain is entirely unsustainable. It is a major reason why so many dedicated, experienced professionals are currently being forced to close their doors forever.
We need your help to reverse this decision. Please take a moment to sign the official petitions linked here and help us fight for the financial survival of the independent childcare sector.
The Impact of the New Safer Sleep Guidance
The upcoming EYFS safer sleep requirements attempt to force clinical, large scale nursery regulations onto independent family homes. While safety is always our absolute priority, these blanket rules create impossible logistical challenges for solo professionals:
Disrupting Vital Rest: Forcing practitioners to transfer a sleeping baby from a safe, lie flat pram into a cot the moment they step inside will almost certainly wake them. Depriving infants of necessary sleep actively harms their emotional regulation and development.
The Impact on Awake Children: If a solo practitioner is mandated to remain in a quiet, dimly lit room to continuously supervise a sleeping baby, the older awake children completely miss out. They are prevented from engaging in messy play, noisy activities, and outdoor learning.
Logistical Impossibilities: Mandating unbroken, same room supervision for infants under six months old means a solo professional cannot legally use the bathroom, prepare a hot meal, or clean up without breaking the guidance.
Fire Evacuation Risks: In a small domestic property, evacuating three sleeping children from upstairs rigid cots during an emergency is an immense logistical risk for a solo worker, compared to wheeling them out safely in ground floor buggies.
Trapped Indoors: Ultimately, these rigid expectations strip away the active, community integrated lifestyle that families actively choose. It forces childminders to stay housebound, destroying the rich, varied experiences that make home based care so incredibly beneficial.
Download the Official Statement Here: An Open Statement to the Department for Education and The Lullaby Trust
Please share this directly to your own pages to spread the word, or download the PDF to email straight to your local MP, Department for Education and the Lullaby Trust.
The Lullaby Trust: info@lullabytrust.org.uk or office@lullabytrust.org.uk.
The Department for Education: help-for-early-years.providers@education.gov.uk
You can find your MP and their contact details right here:
Find Your MP: https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP
Write to your politicians, national or local, for free : https://www.writetothem.com/
The Safety Reality of Large Scale Settings Beyond the threat to our businesses, there are severe safety concerns about placing very young children in overwhelming, school sized environments. Recently, we have seen deeply alarming national news reports of two year old children wandering out of nursery gates completely unsupervised. In one horrific case in Edinburgh just a few months ago, a missing toddler was found freezing inside a closed playground grit bin after wandering away from staff.
When you place tiny children in massive institutions with floating shift workers and high ratios, it becomes dangerously easy for a quiet toddler to quite literally get lost in the system.
Why Childminders Offer a Better Alternative Very young children need intimate, responsive care. This is exactly why childminders are fundamentally better suited for early development:
Unmatched Supervision: In a childminding setting, your child is never just a face in a crowded room. We have incredibly low ratios and constant, unbroken awareness of exactly where your child is at all times. No child wanders out of our front doors unnoticed.
Deep, Secure Attachments: A school based nursery often means changing faces and high staff turnover. Childminders provide a single, consistent primary caregiver, allowing children to build the deep emotional security they need to confidently explore the world.
A True Family Environment: A school site is institutional by design. We offer a genuine, warm home environment where children learn through real life experiences, mixing with different age groups exactly like a real family.
Tailored Learning: We do not force toddlers to conform to a rigid school timetable before they are ready. We follow the unique rhythms, interests, and developmental stages of each individual child.
We absolutely must protect home based childcare to ensure parents always have the choice of a safe, nurturing, and highly personal environment for their youngest children.
Toddler found in a grit bin at a primary school nursery:
This is the horrifying story from Maybury Primary School in Edinburgh, where a two-year-old boy wandered out of the school’s nursery and was later found unresponsive inside a closed grit bin in the playground.
Link: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/edinburgh-nursery-horror-mum-finds-36637399
Three-year-old escapes school nursery unnoticed and attempts to cross busy road:
This happened at Kingsford School Nursery (run by the local council in Aberdeen). The child wandered out of the school setting entirely unnoticed by staff and was nearly hit by a bus on a major road before a passer-by intervened. The Care Inspectorate upheld five complaints against the school nursery.
Toddler escapes primary school nursery and walks half a mile alone:
This occurred at Kiltearn Primary School’s nursery. A three-year-old girl walked out of the school playground completely unnoticed, crossed two main roads, and walked half a mile before being found crying by a neighbour.
Link: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-toddler-3-found-crying-13998543
Sector News and Important Resources
We are not fighting this battle alone. Major early years organisations and professional childcare platforms are actively campaigning alongside us to protect the future of independent childminding. Please explore the articles below to read more about the ongoing fight to save our sector:
The Fight to Keep the Ten Percent Wear and Tear Allowance Childcare.co.uk has published a phenomenal breakdown of exactly why the removal of our specific tax allowance is so damaging. They even highlight the current petitions trying to reverse the decision. This is a brilliant read for anyone who wants to understand the immense financial pressure currently being placed on independent early years professionals.
Read the article here: https://www.childcare.co.uk/news/childminders-say-keep-the-wear-and-tear-allowance
HMRC Meetings and Making Tax Digital Following the outrage over the removal of the wear and tear allowance, Childcare.co.uk secured an exclusive meeting with HMRC to advocate for us. This article details their ongoing fight to prove that the standard business expenses simply do not work for educators running a business out of their own family homes.
Read the article here: https://www.childcare.co.uk/news/childcare-co-uk-met-with-HMRC
The DfE Push for Strict Safer Sleep Rules Coram PACEY recently published an update regarding the Early Education Minister and the strict new sleep rules coming in September. This article details the exact guidance we are pushing back against, highlighting the immense difficulty childminders face when trying to apply commercial nursery sleep rules while operating a dynamic, outdoor focused daily routine.
Read the article here: https://www.corampacey.org.uk/early-education-minister-writes-to-sector-around-safer-sleep/