Londoners, how much do you pay your live-out nanny? Help me decide if I should give our nanny a raise.

It is the same as nursery temping. Nursery nurse is paid by the agency. The nursery is invoiced a much higher amount by the agency.

For a temp nanny, I can see that it makes more sense doing it this way, as the agency run the PAYE scheme.
MrAnchovy - is there any limit to how long such an agreement could last? For example, is there any reason why say a nanny working 40 hours a week for a single family could not have pay done in this way?

No Blondes, the arrangement Yummymummy2301 is talking about can be done perfectly legally and is very common in other sections of the worforce - the nanny is an 'agency worker' and not an employee.

Agency workers have most, but not all, of the rights of employees - more details on DirectGov if you are interested. Specifically, they are entitled to paid holiday and SSP which are paid by the agency and the rate that the 'engager' (i.e. the parent(s)) pays to the agency is higher than the rate the agency pays the worker to cover this.

yummymummy tbh what you are doing sounds dodgy and possibly illegal -you are her employer and should be paying tax and ni on her wages - she is legally entitled to holiday and ssp

We have our nanny through a company , who found her for us , set up interview etc ( no admin/finders fee) and then the nannies wages go through their payroll system , so they take our money every month after invoicing us and then they pay her wages into her bank every month which works out really well for us , we pay £11.50 ph for her, £9.50 for evening work and a flat rate of £40 for an overnight stay (when the kids are asleep till waking up at 7am), it may seem a little more expensive than on average a lot of you are paying however we don?t have to worry about tax and NI , sick pay, holiday pay, which is a massive relieve she?s on a 0 hours contract which is handy to have just incase , on average we giver her between 25-35 how but to know if we had a last minute holiday where she wasn?t able to come with us we don?t have to worry about her wages!

I'm going back 10 yrs but I was a nanny in London. I had 3 kids. 1 at nursery and 2 at school. I started at 11.45 picking up youngest from nursery but did work till 7-30 ! I did no chores as an au pair was also employed. My net salary was £350 a week with 8 weeks paid holiday!!! The family I worked for we're very wealthy... In the property business! I also had the opportunity to travel abroad with them all expenses paid plus normal salary but would only have the children a few hours a day x

I recruited a new nanny 6 months ago and pay 450 net a week for 52 hours and standard leave of 4 weeks plus public hols.
I wast told by the agency that rates have gone down in the current economic climate!
Don't know about you but my take home pay has been pretty static too.
We do give early finishes and extra leave on ad hoc basis.

We are west London.
We pay 8ph net when she has DD. 12 hours a week she also has a friends baby and between us we pay 12ph net.

Our nanny isn't British. She used to be our cleaner and has no childcare experience which is why she has a lower rate of pay. She does 7.30-6.30 3 days a week and she has 5 weeks paid hol plus bank holidays on top. Mostly she works slightly under the hours we pay her for, but we need the flexibility.

I think your nanny is taking the mick to be honest. 9 weeks hol a year! Amazing, she's very lucky!

I don't have a nanny but I have friends who do and NONE of them pay tax on their full salary. My brother's girlfriend is Canadian and a nanny and when her working visa ran out she found a job working for a family (illegally, obviously!) cash in hand. The dad was a barrister specialising in immigration!

Seems to be far easier to fiddle your childcare costs than claim benefits you're not entitled to and absolutely the treasury should clamp down on it.

I imagine that the nanny market will moderate slightly and fewer will be demanding 20% pay rises!

*I've had two nannies who have become pregnant and been eligible for SMP..

I can't imagine how awful that would have been if they'd have found out they weren't eligible because I hadn't been paying tax & NI for them. shock*

SMP is not a state benefit and eligibility does not depend on the payment of National Insurance. If you illegally pay someone outside PAYE and they are become pregnant you will have to pay all the back tax and NI, probably a penalty of up to £3,000 and also the SMP!

Oh and we paid our nanny £12p/h gross between two families in the nannyshare (in SW London) but we only declared 2 of the 4 days she worked for us.

thomas i have had 10/11 weeks holiday a year for the past 5 years as parents liked to spend time with their dc, so i had every half term off (3) often 2 weeks at easter and xmas (4) plus my 2 weeks and their 2 weeks and yes i got paid in full and time off - tho must admit this is rare

op - so basically you are waiting to see if your nanny finds a better paid job then yours - tbh i would seriously think bout finding a new nanny now

We had a nannyshare and fell out with the other family when they refused to pay their share of our nanny's tax bill! In the end they reluctantly paid but now blank us in the playground and at social events. Pathetic!

I've had two nannies who have become pregnant and been eligible for SMP..

I can't imagine how awful that would have been if they'd have found out they weren't eligible because I hadn't been paying tax & NI for them.

I think the holier than thou perspective comes a) from parents who are paying the full whack and get pissed off that other people don't, b) from nannies who are fed up about employers not wanting to deduct their tax and NI from wages which means they end up not getting things like SMP, c) from the fact the treasury loses an estimated £57m a year from nannies being paid cash in hand and when the country is in dire straits "every little helps" to quote a well known supermarket!

There's actually a petition to stop this net pay culture here as part of a big campaign that is being launched next week.

I've literally never heard of 9 weeks' paid holiday a year, and £10 net per hour is well accepted as the going rate. I know this and don't even have kids of my own!

I do agree with others that your nanny's perceptions may be coloured by other nannies being paid cash in hand - amazing how holier-than-thou MNs are about this, as this is absolutely NOT the norm amongst my friends. Even my mates who are lawyers and accountants and would lose their practice certs if caught out by HMRC have told me they've often been tempted to go down this road.

You may find nothing much happens despite her threats. In my circle of friends, several parents are losing jobs, or losing work if self-employed, and going down the au pair or nannyshare route instead. I also know two nannies who are currently 'resting', one in SW11 and one in W6. One of them is ex public school and ex Norland, the kind of girl who used to get snapped up by rich Americans and Arabs. She's working behind the bar at our local for the moment.

You are Paying a good wage and over the top for holidays

So decide if you can and want to pay more or say no and poss get a new nanny

I think u are paying a good wage. On a net basis we pay 10.50/hr for 52.5 hrs a week for 3 boys under 5. That's about £15 hour gross. Our nanny has 25 years experience and is ultra reliable. She will likely get 2 extra weeks paid holiday this year but she prefers to do some free babysitting for us to make up for some of it (5 evenings).
We are Kensington and pay top end.
If you really love your nanny and don't want her to leave but she will leave without a pay rise she is being a bit cheeky asking for a 20 pct rise partic as she gets so much paid leave. You could offer a rise but ask her to work some of the usual leave. Did u get a 20pct rise? Where does she think u can magic it from? There are lots of lovely experienced nannies who would love your job!

I think the questions here is
Do you want to keep your nanny?
Can you afford to pay her what she is asking?
If the answer is no to either question you should start looking for a new nanny as you are going to have one piss off/looking for a new job nanny on your hands .
If is the just that you can afford and you want to keep nanny you going to have a very frank talk with her.

10nph is going rate in london so I think she is being very cheeky

We pay our nanny £ 9.50 an hour net plus her tax and Ni and 6 weeks paid holidays. We live in NE London. We interviewed 6 months ago and all the candidates asked for £10 per hour bar none. Some wanted tax paid some didnt. We managed to negotiate 9.50 as she only looks after our 1 year old all day and school runs plus holiday cover for 7 year old. She works 8 to 6 three days. She is lovely with the kids and will keep things reasonably tidy. I decided I would rather have a lovely intelligent person who I trust and get on with than someone who would clean the cooker! If you get both o think you are very lucky. I think £12 is pushing it only because as everyone has said the going rate is less. Perhaps she thinks you will pay more rather than disrupt your kids care, which is a bit off? Do you like her? Are there other problems?

That is a staggering amount to pay when 9 weeks hol are paid!! Stick to your guns or look elsewhere. There are plenty of truly excellent nannies out there who won't take the p*ss (and I include English nannies in that too).

born and nbee yes I know but that's what she said she wanted, not what we decreed. She works mainly at another place and has holiday pay there but because I have helped support her two dcs in the evenings for various exams for no pay, that is what she wanted.