To really not understand why childminders expect to be paid for their holidays and sick pay?

It's up to each childminder to set their own terms, and up to you to choose one.

My childminder doesn't get paid if she's sick, but she does have 5 weeks of half-pay for holidays. Over the course of a year though, she is still cheaper than other CMs who don't charge for holidays but have a higher hourly rate.

childminders don't

if there service is unavailable because of them they don't get paid

if you choose not to send your child they do

Yes there are lots of things that HMRC would look at in determining whether the person was self employed or not but from what I've seen at work from our subcontractors (who have A LOT more say about when they take work on and under which conditions they do it than a childminder once a contract is signed) these sorts of contracts do not seem to be w/o risk to the parent.

Many cm's take their guidance from NMCA who are hardly tax experts. But it's the parents who would be liable.

YANBU in the slightest. I am not self-employed but am likely to be in the next 2-3 years and I would not be allowed to do this as a professional. It is not right CM's do it.

YANBU. A childminder who works in her own home is self employed and therefore you should only need to pay if your child can't attend due to illness, your holidays etc. You shouldn't have to pay if she takes holidays.

If the minder is in your home then she is an employee so you would have to pay for holidays and if she wasn't needed on a particular day for any reason .

For the avoidance of doubt my personal opinion is that it's preferable for self-employed service providers not to charge when unavailable.

My professional opinion is that HMRC would not class childminders as being employed by all the parents using their service even if they do charge for holidays and sick pay.

I am In SE London too and all the childminders I have visited charge for their holidays. I need to check up on the sick pay element.
There are hardly any childminders where I live so its a sellers market and they can charge what they want.
paying £120 a day for a service I cant use is painful when the childminders are on holiday!!

When I was looking for childminders one told me she had only taken 2 days holiday in the last 2 years as she being self employed she couldn't afford to take holiday, and she'd never been off sick. And my thoughts were, actually, I don't want someone looking after my child who is knackered and never has a day off and always works even when they are ill. Went for a nursery in the end anyway.

The other thing is if someone working for me in the company I work for, calls in sick, there are certain things that we can do. They are required to send in a doctors note after a certain period of time. We can refer them to occupational health if there is a particular pattern or concern over their sickness, and in some cases formal warnings/disciplinary procedures can be undertaken. So your childminder has the benefit an employee has of taking sick leave, but none of the employee's responsibilities and you have none of the employer's rights, although I suppose you can give notice to leave.

So YANBU on the sick leave.

Can see both sides - this is why I don't use a CM. I am very lucky to have DD is a very small nursery which is a great compromise for us.

There are a lot of opinions on here and some very well-informed tax and employment law advice. Maybe the tax and employment law advice is useful? I just see a lot of people ignoring it and expressing their personal opinions, but opinion doesn't have the weight of the law.

My childminder doesn't charge for her sick days or for holidays as she is term time only. But you would have signed a contract with her terms and conditions and you chose to sign it and accept that she gets paid for sick days or holidays.

I'm in the same boat as you OP. I work freelance and couldn't afford to have time off due to other people's sickness or holiday. That's why I used a nursery instead of a childminder. I have also used a nanny-share: between the five of us, the nanny and all four parents, we could always sort cover.

My own personal view is that self-employed people or in fact any service shouldn't charge if unavailable and should factor into their rates whatever costs they incur in providing that service as well. But ultimately as a commercial enterprise it's entirely up to them to work out what charging arrangements the market where they are will support.

In terms of tax I don't think HMRC would consider childminders employed. Yes payment of holiday and sick pay is one indicator that someone might be employed but it's only one of several things HMRC would look at in deciding someone's employment status and I think overall there are plenty of indicators that childminders are not employed by all the parents using their service.

I agree YANBU.

Dh and I are self employed.

We do not get paid during the school summer holidays and do not charge a higher rate to account for that (or we would price ourselves out of the market). Dh has insurance to cover himself if he is sick. I don't.

Instead we try to find other work to cover those periods (summer schools etc).

When my dc were in nursery they closed for 2 weeks at Christmas, we did not pay whilst they were closed but we did pay if we chose not to sned the dc during school holidays as they were open ready to provide a service. The mursery now offers term time only options at the same rate.

Errrr I don't get any holiday pay or sick pay.We were told on our induction that you can't ask for payment if you're not available to work.

I don't work during the school holidays and get nothing or for any set holiday at all.

Where I work I know of only one childminder who expects such payment and I know it bugged her clients.

Flowery - the rates may be higher to reflect the fact that they are covering holiday time. But I would err on the side of caution if I were signing the contract of a cm and NOT put paid holiday in it.

YANBU, it doesn't sound right at all.

CM's always say (at least in the MN childcare section) that: "It's whatever is in the contract." They seem to be going by NCMA recommendations.

BUT they are not tax experts and what riksti says is very important. I think there is a very good chance HMRC could judge these individuals as being employed under these circumstances. I don't work for HMRC but deal with subcontractors/suppliers of services and HRMC is tightening up massively in this area. If we paid holiday/sick leave to these people I am sure that our legal counsel would judge them employees to capture our risk.

I agree flowery.

But flowery makes a fair point about the rates.

Yanbu, its a funny little anomaly in the world of childminding. P.S. I couldn't find one that didn't have this sort of contract in SE London either, op.

If you employ a nanny you set the terms and the nanny decides whether to accept the job or not on that basis.

If you want to use a childcare service such as a childminder or nursery, they set the terms and you decide whether to use their service or an alternative based on those terms.

Yes it's not how many self-employed people work, but it's not going to be costing any more, as if they didn't charge for holidays/sickness their rates would be higher.

As with any service or product you buy, unless there is an unfair monopoly situation, you can't say their terms are unreasonable because you have the option to buy that product or service elsewhere.

YANBU Op, this is why I use nursery not a CM