Cleaner who works 6 hours per week preferring cash in hand weekly - holiday pay? Is this a thing?

I pay mine when I go on holiday ( because that’s my decision to go away and she shouldn’t lose out) , but I don’t pay when she goes away ( usually for 3 weeks). I give her a week’s pay as a Christmas present.

Well that was something I had to factor in to my thought process when I set up my cleaning service. I don't want to guiilt people in having me all the time, not when they pretty much want me all year round. This said, I have people queing up for a cancellation for extra cleaning, so I can easily fill a gap.

Yes, that's right. I'm a cleaner and if I'm away, I certainly wouldn't expect any of my clients to pay me.
That said, one of my clients recently said that they didn't want me for 2 weeks. They weren't going away. No acknowledgement that I'm now losing 2 weeks pay out of the blue. It's left a bitter taste in my mouth and they're on the brink of becoming ex-clients.

She said that she knows her cleaner isn't declaring it, so as a bare minimum, there is a moral responsibility. I wouldn't employ or be complicit in open tax avoidance, fraud and screwing over tax payers.

She doesn't have any responsibility that she needs to absolve of, they're fine to pay cash if that's what the cleaner wants, it's up to the cleaner to make sure she's declaring it correctly, not the OP.

Sorry I don’t understand this - surely if people are shocking at forgetting to go to the cash point, then a standing order would be the way to go?

This - if she wants to be an employer she’ll have to be one!

There are so many reasons someone wants cash and it’s not just about dodging tax! Our cleaner comes to us on a Wednesday morning, she does one other short job after and is finished by 2 so that’s her chance to do supermarket shopping before getting her kids at 3. And she prefers to have cash to do that. I have no reason to think she is not paying tax - in fact she definitely was during the pandemic as she claimed the self employment support and needed evidence to do that.

Isn’t holiday pay when the cleaner is on holiday? A retainer would be when the householder doesn’t need cleaning but pays anyway.

I'd want cash too as a cleaner,people are shocking at 'forgetting' to go to the cash point.

I have had a cleaner for years and I don’t work but am disabled. I pay my cleaner cash in hand. But I know she declares it as a relative of mine is her accountant. (She asked if I knew anyone).

We pay her if we are away but not if she is. Cash bonus and present at Christmas.

No. The wage she sets herself reflects the lack of holiday and sick pay.

I could do with it and I don't work

Even agency cleaners don't get holiday pay as they are self employed (mostly)
I had one client pay me £20 when they went away once (i earned £30 a week doing 2.5 hours there) but that was their choice and I didn't expect it

I was joking, calm down! I don't for a minute think the police will be reading mumsnet. However, your morals really need questioning. Are you happy with the quality of the NHS? Do you think our schools are well funded? Do you think that people with severe disabilities who cannot work and rely totally on benefits are living a comfortable life? Because if your answer to any of them is 'no' then take a look at yourself as you are part of the problem.

And no, small businesses don't all fiddle their taxes! Most people are more honest and have a considerably higher moral standing than you do from your gutter level thinking. It's no wonder this country struggles!

No - and this is where there is misinformation being spread above.

I simply pay an agreed monthly amount equivalent to 52 weeks x 5 hours x hourly rate / 12.

I then allow them to take time off from that / flex the hours / occasionally be ill / ie be humans! I value them as people not as a mathematical transaction…

sure that can be seen as one indicator amongst others that I am employing them, but is not the only one, nor the main one.

The most critical in determining whether employed or not is whether they have control over how they deliver their service or whether I control that - so they are able to substitute someone else if necessary / they are able to have choice in when those hours are delivered (eg my cleaner said she would prefer to do Tuesday rather than Wednesday last week - no issue for me, her choice in how she delivers the service of looking after us & house) I can ask her to do different days, but she has the autonomy to say no, whereas as an employee she would not have that… there are also other tests like does she use our kit and cleaning materials or hers (eg she brings her own vacuum cleaner etc)

so many elements to the test of whether employed or not and you have to be seen to be doing a significant proportion for the status to change - another big one is whether there are multiple or single clients etc

my approach is simply the old-fashioned way I was raised that you look after your staff because they look after you.

So presumably if you're paying holiday pay/sickness... You're employing them rather than contracting them?

I bank transfer my dad's cleaner 20 ph - she's self employed. Equally she has her own insurance for her business.

She thinks you are a soft touch or she doesn't know how being self-employed works.

Oh for goodness sake. I very much doubt the police are going to show up on my doorstep, not least because friend in question probably didn’t even earn enough to pay tax anyway and also she has passed away. If they want to arrest me for helping out a friend who was working hard for little money then happy days, come and arrest me. Small business owners fiddle their taxes every day.

Anyone who pays any small business owner in cash is complicit in tax evasion. Only one reason small business owners ask for cash. My friend actually didn’t ask me to do that, but I offered. And yes I do pay tax, lots of it, but then i’m not a small business owner. If I was, i’d have definitely had yes if a friend asked if they wanted me to pay in cash.

Same, we pay £15 in north London. There are so so many cleaners looking for work around here. You could pay a lot less, but I wouldn't pay less than £15, doesn't seem right.

Yes this is mad OP, you're paying her £120 a week, are you giving her £500+ at Christmas?

I thought that if she has five clients @£500 each per week. That's £10k a year holiday pay. Awesome cheek

She won't get holiday pay from an agency. They don't employ their "staff". That's not how agencies work. They exist to take people who are utterly desperate for a cleaner and can't find one, and match them with a someone who wants to clean but who inexplicably is incapable of sadly unable to find, manage, and retain their own clients.

The agency charges a straight-up fully legal fee every month, paid from the client to the agency by standing order (or whatever method). The cleaner - who is supposed to be registered with HMRC as self-employed - is then paid something barely like minimum wage on the day of the clean, and that's minimum wage without the estimated 30%+ they get per hour as an employee, when holidays and other benefits are factored in.

No way that’s weird !

This 👆