Assistant registration delays impacting childminders

Childminders have been contacting Childcare.co.uk over the last few weeks to share their concerns about how the Department for Education's (DfE) changes to the suitability requirements are affecting them now and may impact them in the future.

Previously, under the EYFS 2025 legislation, childminders could allow an assistant to start working with them after completing the safer recruitment process, provided the assistant was fully supervised and was not counted in ratio, while waiting for their suitability paperwork to be processed.

However, the DfE has made a significant change to the suitability wording in the Childminder EYFS 2026, linked to the Crime and Policing Act 2026. This means that childminders must now wait until their proposed assistant has received an Ofsted suitability letter before they can start working.

There are a number of very worrying concerns around this change. Members have told us that:

• Some childminders have had to give notice to their assistants from 1 September because Ofsted had not issued the required suitability letter in time for the change. However, because the assistants were already employed, the childminders are still legally required to pay them, despite also having to give notice to children and families.

• Chasing assistant applications is becoming increasingly frustrating, with members receiving little or no updated information from Ofsted other than being told to continue waiting, sometimes for months.

• Delays in processing applications for both childminders and assistants during the summer are a known issue, yet Ofsted does not appear to have put sufficient measures in place to manage these delays.

• Many members have been waiting more than four months for Ofsted to process a suitability letter for an assistant. This is unlikely to be sustainable in the future, particularly where a childminder needs to replace an assistant quickly.

• In future, childminders are very concerned that they will need to pay for an assistant applicant's DBS check, first aid and safeguarding training so that they are ready to start as soon as their suitability letter is received. However, after waiting many months for Ofsted to process the application, there remains an additional and very real risk that information obtained through written references or other checks prior to employment could ultimately result in the applicant being deemed unsuitable - or the assistant applicant could go elsewhere for work because the wait was unsustainable for them. This could leave childminders facing significant costs with no guarantee that the assistant will be able to work.

• Members report that Ofsted is increasingly placing additional barriers in the way of assistant applications. For example, after already lengthy delays, applicants may be asked to complete a medical check, provide a risk assessment or participate in a further telephone call to answer additional questions.

• College students who have previously benefited greatly from spending time in childminding settings may now have to find alternative placements because, by the time their suitability letter is processed, their required workplace placement may already have ended.

• Childminders operating on non-domestic premises often employ more assistants and work with higher ratios. They tell us that these new rules could make their businesses unsustainable. An assistant may typically give one month's notice, but the childminder may then have to give notice to children and families because they cannot fill the space until Ofsted has completed the suitability process. With no indication of how long this process will take, childminders are also concerned about whether prospective assistants will realistically be willing to wait several months before being able to start their new job.

Group settings (PVI) are, of course, required to carry out suitability checks. However, apart from waiting for DBS checks, which are often processed relatively quickly by third-party providers, they can complete the other required checks in-house.

Childminders are therefore placed at a significant disadvantage by this new requirement. Ofsted only confirmed to Childcare.co.uk on 23 September that the requirement was being applied retrospectively, meaning that even where an assistant had already been working, they were required to stop from 1 September if a suitability letter had not been issued.

This has already had serious consequences. For example, one member received a Welfare Requirements Notice for continuing to work with an assistant after 1 September when the assistant had not yet received a suitability letter. The assistant had started working with the childminder much earlier in the year and the childminder had reasonably believed that everything was in order while the suitability paperwork was being processed.

The additional requirements, combined with lengthy and unpredictable processing times, are creating significant financial and operational pressures for childminders. Many in the sector feel that the current process is disproportionate and risks making childminding unnecessarily difficult to sustain.

Childcare.co.uk urges Ofsted to work closely with the sector to address and better manage delays in assistant suitability applications before more childminders are forced to give notice to children and families or, ultimately, leave the sector altogether.