A report supposedly exposing the recruitment of unqualified nannies without proper checks by agencies has been slammed as misleading.

‘Emily’, a journalist posing as a nanny wanting work for consumer magazine Which?, contacted 10 member-agencies of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and found some apparently alarming results.

According to the article, one REC-accredited agency claimed a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check was unnecessary, while another agency was happy to take on an unqualified worker.

But Oliver Black, director of the REC-accredited childcare recruitment company Tinies, was sceptical about the conclusions of the article.

“It was a little bit spurious,” he said. “The nanny never visited any agencies and we don’t know if she was put forward to a family. This business is about sleeping well at night, and you can’t do that if you don’t do those checks.”