MP calls on Ofsted to save Coniston Childcare

Local MP Tim Farron has today written to the Chief Inspector of Ofsted calling on them to cut red tape, allow successful child minders like those at Coniston to do their job and not leave the profession to sink under the weight of paperwork.

The community has been shocked at the news that Rachel Hadwin's Coniston Childcare is to close to nursery education on Friday 18 December, and childcare will formally stop in August 2010. This is primarily because of the amount of paperwork and red tape that child minders have to go through to be allowed to do their jobs.

Twenty-five local families will be deprived of high quality local childcare, and the impact on schools and local facilities will be considerable. In the last Ofsted report of the centre in 2007, Coniston Childcare was given a "good" report and was described as a place that "children are cared for in a warm, welcoming, and clean environment".

Tim says, "I cannot believe that Rachel's hard work and commitment to children and families in Coniston has been forced to end because of government bureaucracy. It makes me mad when government makes people spend more time filling in forms than on caring for children.

"I have written to Ofsted to urgently review this and I have asked them to look at ways to provide high quality childcare and early year's education in small communities like Coniston. There is no need for such debilitating amounts of red tape."