Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government will consider amending the Childcare Act 2006 to allow registered childminders to claim funded childcare hours for children to whom they are related, where all regulatory requirements are met.

Parents are free to choose the childcare that is right for them and their children, and childminders are not prevented from caring for related children. However, the restriction on funding relatives is set out in the Childcare Act (2006). Section 18(4) of this Act specifically excludes care provided for a child by a parent or other relative.

This approach avoids creating an incentive for adults to register to become childminders and being paid to look after related children that they are already looking after on an informal basis. Allowing childminders to receive funding for looking after related children would not be an effective use of public money.

A local authority can choose to fund a childminder providing childcare for a related child, but this would have to be from local authority funds independent of the Dedicated Schools Grant.

Although childminders cannot receive entitlements funding for related children, flexibilities within staff-to-child ratios can be used to enable childminders who are caring for related children to avoid limiting the income they can earn.

We have no plans to change this long-standing position at this time.