The agency theory

[JCrakers]

I'm all against being part of an agency but have sat down and thought about it. The only way I can see it working is if it was the LA or early years teams job.

If the LA was the agency and took no fee then it could work for me. In my town there is a clique childminding group that runs a vacancy list. They take all the good enquiries and deal out all the odd hours, part time mindees to everyone else. ive not had an enquiry from there for a couple of years. All my work comes from my website and word of mouth/recommendations and its been a hard slog over two years to become full. I rang the council once pretending to be a parent to get numbers of minders in my area only to be given the groups number....

My LA recently came to inspect me due to funding and gave me a grade that was the same as Ofsted. They visit every 4-6 months to make sure I'm ok, keeping up with paperwork etc. they also inspect me every 3-4 yrs just like Ofsted do. If they were to be the agency and match childminders to parents then that could work for me. They would advertise childminders as we don't get enough recognition.

They would inspect every childminder in my town and grade them. Then depending on what grade they get depends on how many childminding spaces they could have. Someone who shows very good skills,experience and is on top of everything would be able to have 4 children under 5 if they wished to whereas someone who is new or doesn't give a hoot about eyfs and ofsted would less spaces until they can gather experience or buck up their ideas.
This would make some childminders work harder to the higher grade. Other childminders would probably give up as there are a few in my town who don't do eyfs as they can't be bothered.

But if its going to be an agency that takes a fee or a percentage I can't see it working. And either way I still can't see how it would save parents money. But all LAs are different and what works for one, may not work for others.

Just a thought

[rosebud]

I'm all against being part of an agency but have sat down and thought about it. The only way I can see it working is if it was the LA or early years teams job.

If the LA was the agency and took no fee then it could work for me. In my town there is a clique childminding group that runs a vacancy list. They take all the good enquiries and deal out all the odd hours, part time mindees to everyone else. ive not had an enquiry from there for a couple of years. All my work comes from my website and word of mouth/recommendations and its been a hard slog over two years to become full. I rang the council once pretending to be a parent to get numbers of minders in my area only to be given the groups number....

My LA recently came to inspect me due to funding and gave me a grade that was the same as Ofsted. They visit every 4-6 months to make sure I'm ok, keeping up with paperwork etc. they also inspect me every 3-4 yrs just like Ofsted do. If they were to be the agency and match childminders to parents then that could work for me. They would advertise childminders as we don't get enough recognition.

They would inspect every childminder in my town and grade them. Then depending on what grade they get depends on how many childminding spaces they could have. Someone who shows very good skills,experience and is on top of everything would be able to have 4 children under 5 if they wished to whereas someone who is new or doesn't give a hoot about eyfs and ofsted would less spaces until they can gather experience or buck up their ideas.
This would make some childminders work harder to the higher grade. Other childminders would probably give up as there are a few in my town who don't do eyfs as they can't be bothered.

But if its going to be an agency that takes a fee or a percentage I can't see it working. And either way I still can't see how it would save parents money. But all LAs are different and what works for one, may not work for others.

Just a thought

Interesting. We had a fantastic childminding network run by my LA up until about 3 years ago when they made all the staff redundant. It did all of the things that the report outlines agencies doing apart from dealing with any money issues. Had things been left alone it would have been an agency all ready to go with only a few minor tweaks. Now we have minimal staff with nobody working on behalf of childminders only - just the Early Years team as a whole.

[hectors house]

Interesting. We had a fantastic childminding network run by my LA up until about 3 years ago when they made all the staff redundant. It did all of the things that the report outlines agencies doing apart from dealing with any money issues. Had things been left alone it would have been an agency all ready to go with only a few minor tweaks. Now we have minimal staff with nobody working on behalf of childminders only - just the Early Years team as a whole.

Our Early years team are working with skeleton staff and rest being made redundant in the summer - so nice idea to have them being "the agency" but not going to work in Somerset!

[FussyElmo]

Most early years teams went the government cut the budgets for la's. Am I the only one who know thinks its ironic that the government now wants to set up agencys when they were responsible for the teams going.

I can see this being the last nail in the coffin for our ey team