Parent portal
Where parents record where their child is cared for.
- Add children using birth year and month only
- Search the public childminder register
- Create and manage placements
- See the placement history for each child
Built independently by parents. Not an official register and not a Care Inspectorate service.
Who checks how many children a childminder is caring for?
A parent-built prototype that shows how Scotland's childminding capacity limits could be checked.
6/3/1
A childminder working alone may care for:
- Up to 6 children under the age of 12.
- Of those, a maximum of 3 may be pre-school.
- Only a single child may be under the age of 1.
A childminder's own children are included in this count.
Source: Care Inspectorate
Clear limits, and no way to check them
The limits are published. What happens day to day is known only to the childminder. Here is what a breach looks like when the numbers are recorded.
5
pre-school children on Mondays and Wednesdays, where the limit is 3.
Every other day is within the limit, so a visit on a Tuesday would find nothing wrong.
Pre-school children by weekday at one demo childminder
| Day | Pre-school children | Over the limit |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 5 | Yes |
| Tuesday | 2 | No |
| Wednesday | 5 | Yes |
| Thursday | 2 | No |
| Friday | 3 | No |
Illustrative. Synthetic demo data for the fictional childminder Little Stars Childminding, including the childminder's own child.
Source: Child-Minder demo database
It relies on self-reporting
Childminders report their own numbers. Outside unannounced visits, inspectors have no independent way to verify them.
Nothing is cross-referenced
If a child is placed with more than one childminder, or a childminder takes on more children than allowed, nothing detects it. A breach can go unnoticed between inspection visits.
How it works
Parents record a placement in three steps. The capacity check runs on its own.
Add a child
Parents add each child using birth year and month only. No names are collected. Each child gets a pseudonymous reference, such as CM-A7F9B2.
Record a place
Link the child to a childminder from the Care Inspectorate's public register. The registration number is already public data.
Flag a breach
Placements are cross-checked against each childminder's capacity limits on their busiest day. In the proposed model, breaches go to Care Inspectorate officers to review.
Less data than a school permission slip
Child-Minder is designed around data minimisation. It collects only what is needed to check capacity.
Collected
- Email address, for sign-in
- Child's birth year and month
- Childminder registration number (already public)
- Placement dates
Never collected
- Children's names
- Children's addresses
- Health data or allergies
- Parents' names
- Financial information
Child-Minder holds no special category data and no children's names, and less personal data than the records childminders already keep to meet their regulatory duties.
Answering the cited barriers
Three barriers have been cited as reasons not to pursue a register. Each has a direct answer.
“Legal barriers”
A clear lawful basis already exists.
Article 6(1)(e) UK GDPR (public task) provides a lawful basis for a model operated by the Care Inspectorate. The NHS, schools and social work departments rely on the same basis every day to process far more sensitive data about children.
“Digital barriers”
This prototype was built quickly.
It was made with free, open-source tools. The infrastructure cost is negligible and no novel technology is needed.
“Data protection barriers”
It holds less data than existing systems.
Child-Minder collects less personal data than a school enrolment form. It holds no special category data and no children's names.
What the prototype demonstrates
Two working portals that show the idea end to end.
Inspector view
The proposed Care Inspectorate model.
- Capacity monitoring across all childminders
- Automatic breach and at-capacity alerts
- Capacity broken down by age group for each childminder
- Child references only, no parent data
Try the demo
Sign in with either test account to explore both portals. Synthetic data only, including a childminder in breach. No real children are involved.
Sign inParent account
- parent@child-minder.org
- Password
- parent-password
Inspector account
- inspector@child-minder.org
- Password
- inspector-password