Gestures and regulation

The government has won Brownie points at intervals by extending the time a mother or father can have off work after the birth of a child, causing significant extra costs to employers and probably making them less likely to employ a woman of child bearing age, and confl;ecting with other legislation designed to promote womens' prospects.

There is a second and related problem, which the government will doubtless attempt to solve by laying still great burdens on companies.

The following official figures were released recently. In 1996 there were102,600 registered child minders in England, but by August this year the number had declined to 63,600, meaning a drop of 38%. So at a time when families are given longer to stop at home, and also when mothers are encouraged to return to work as soon as possible afterwards, we find that the number of registered child minders has almost halved.

The implication is that more and more women will be chasing a dwindling number of child-minders. Enjoy your time off work with the new child, because it will be expensive to find child care afterwards!

So why is the number of (legal) child minders declining, and defeating the government's attempts to regulate the profession as "clandestine" and illegal arrangements are made? We don't really need to ask mothers and child-minders, because we can guess.

It is almost certainly due to the fact that the watchdog Ofsted has acquired more powers and regulations. This in turn means that mothers and childminders have more forms to fill in, pay higher fees and are subject to monitoring visits. Many child minders have decided that it is just not worth the hassle involved. They have voted with their feet.

The government's desire to control and regulate everything and everybody has reduced their ability to persuade young mothers back to work. Do government departments actually speak to each other? Do they actually discuss the new powers they give themselves almost daily?