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Childminder agencies will be rated as ‘effective’ or ‘ineffective’ rather than ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’, Ofsted has confirmed.

According to the childminding agencies inspection handbook, published in draft format last month, childminder agencies will be assessed against three sub-judgements: the effectiveness of the leadership and management of the agency; the quality of the agency’s services; and the impact of the agency’s services on the quality of the education and care provided by its childminders.

Inspectors are expected to evaluate how well agencies assess and identify the quality of childminders registered with it, improve and/or maintain the effectiveness of childminding provision, and ensure that childminding services contribute to children’s well-being and progress, when deciding whether to award an overall judgement of ‘effective’ or ‘ineffective’.

They are also expected to visit around 10% of an agency’s registered childminders as part of the inspection process - however, these visits are to “assess the effectiveness of the agency’s arrangements for assuring the quality of its childminders and the accuracy of the agency’s evaluation of quality”, rather than to inspect the childminders themselves.

Launched in 2014, so far only eight childminding agencies have been registered with Ofsted. An �������� survey previously found that only 2% of childminders were planning to join an agency.