Susanna Dawson has been a childminder for 12 years and currently looks after 18 children. That may sound like a lucrative business but all the children come part-time or ad hoc and Mrs Dawson earns only £700 a month gross.

The mother of two from Hexham, Northumberland, was shocked to discover that the Government was planning such a large rise in the annual fees that she pays to register.

“I know there were rumblings about an increase but I didn’t expect it to be this huge jump. No one did. I still haven’t heard anything officially from Ofsted about it, so I imagine there are hundreds of childminders out there who still don’t know what is planned,” she told The Times.

Mrs Dawson presently pays a registration fee of £15. This will rise to £103 from September. The children she looks after are aged between 15 months and 11 years old. “I am going to have to try and get [the extra money] from somewhere,” she said. “I suppose I will try to set some aside each month so that I have it in September when the bill has to be paid.

“I am very reluctant to pass the cost on to the parents. For childminders who only look after two or three children it would be difficult to do this anyway, as one or two families would be hit.”

She said there was a danger that for some childminders, the fee may be simply too much and they may decide to break the law and not register with Ofsted, or simply give up.

“I wouldn’t consider not paying or giving up, but I worry that others might. I would also worry that others might be discouraged from becoming childminders because they will have to find the fee before they start out, which is quite a lot to find,” she said.

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