There are over 80,000 registered childminders in England alone.

A childminder is paid to look after a child in THEIR home - not yours.

what are the current regulations?

The 1989 Children's Act states that anyone who is paid to look after a child under eight for more than two hours a day in their home must be registered with the local authorities. (This does not include close relatives, aunts, grandparents etc.)

The Children's Act allows a childminder to look after no more than three children under five with only one of those children being under a year.
If the children are older a childminder can look after a total of six children under eight, as long as no more than three are under five years old. This figure includes the carer's own child or children. The local authority has a right to set a limit to the number of minded children over the age of eight.

Childminders do not have to be trained in childcare but all newly registered childminders have to have a First Aid qualification and to undergo a six week "Introducing Childminding Practice" course which they gain a certificate for.

Childminders are now inspected by Ofsted.
This happened on the 1st September 2001 when the Early Years Directorate of OFSTED, the Office for Standards in Education, took over responsibility for the registration and inspection of childminders in England.

Ofsted is now responsible for:

inspecting potential childminders
registering childminders
carrying out regular inspections after registration

The childminder has to be interviewed by social services to check their home is safe, secure, warm, clean and has suitable equipment such as fireguards and stair gates.
Anyone over the age of sixteen living with them will be interviewed with regards to health, and whether they have been involved with any form of violence, or child or drug abuse.

These regulations are designed to protect young children CARED FOR (this would not normally be seen as the usual playing at a friends house) by someone who is not a close relative away from their own home.
In the case in question it involved a regular 2 day 10 hour shift over a two-and-a-half year period

The difficulty in the case (as reported by The Mail) seems to revolve around the interpretation of what constitutes 'payment'
Apparently under existing legislation reward is not just a case of money changing hands. The supply of services or goods and in some circumstances reciprocal arrangements can also constitute reward.

Although it sounds as the initial visit may have been an over reaction, if a 'concerned' neighbour lodges a complaint and information of 'illegal' childminding (as reported happened in this case) it's hard to see how Ofsted had any other duty than to investigate.

             Damned if you do - damned if you don't!

An Ofsted spokesman said it applied regulations found in the 2006 Childcare Act, but was currently discussing the interpretation of the word "reward" with the department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to see if a redefinition was possible to cover this reciprocal type of arrangement

Let's not lose sight of the word 'could' in the original title and away from emotive headlines like 'branded!'