Childminding experts are outraged at plans to raise the Ofsted registration fee for playgroups from, in the case of my local one, £20 to £400 a year. What do we get for that?

It ought to be reasonably simple to run a playgroup: children, teacher, space, lots of activities - no problem. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. When the previous committee handed over to us last year, they did so with muttered warnings and so many files of paper you wouldn't believe it. A year on, I understand why.

First came the registration of the new committee: lots of ID, forms and criminal record checks all round - just so that we, all parents of children at the nursery, could hold meetings and fill in more forms. Then came the registration of the nursery, which had to be done afresh because we were moving 50 yards from one building on the infant school site to a new one. All this fell to the poor person who had offered to be chairman, a lawyer on maternity leave who reckons she has spent 50 hours ticking Ofsted boxes so far. But ah, to pay £400 for the privilege.

My role was smaller - to produce a “welcome pack” for new parents. Boring, I thought, but shouldn't take long. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

I rang the early years person on the council. Could she tell me please what a welcome pack ought to contain? That, she said, was up to me. She could send some stuff in the post. Wasn't there anything online; perhaps a template I could adapt, to avoid unnecessary typing? Nothing.

The stuff arrived in the post, sheet upon sheet with opaque references to such things as confidentiality policies and complaints procedures. I shall save you the swearing and the mind-numbing evenings typing out sentences such as: “If a child displays unacceptable behaviour, disapproval is directed at the behaviour, not the child.” Three weeks later we had, in line with official diktat, a “welcome pack” containing the following: our aims, staff, “settling in” procedure, curriculum (this is for two-year-olds), hours and fees, along with “policies” on settling in, healthy eating, sickness, acceptable behaviour, confidentiality, HIV confidentiality, admissions, child protection, equality and parental involvement.

The pack then refers parents to additional policies on demand: a Student Placement Policy, Staffing and Employment Policy, Special Educational Needs/Disability Policy, Health and Safety Policy, Food and Drink Policy, Equipment and Resources Policy, and The Non Collection of Children Policy, which involves social services. It would have been hard to make the nursery sound less welcoming, but Ofsted ought to like it - fingers crossed.

We are due a visit from it shortly. We had the early years person round to check all was in order. She looked through it all, nodded her approval, paused. “But you haven't,” she said, “got a Going Out For a Walk Policy.” No kidding.

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