Coronavirus- can nanny still work?

@Wendy555 Thats what we have done. I trust you accept therefore that not ALL nanny employers are seeking to bend the rules (as you put it) as soon as we are inconvenienced? And by inconvenienced you realise you mean being unable to work, whcih work earns the money to pay the nanny salary too. In the circumstance I now find myself, being unable to work without childcare, what do you think would be fair to pay my nanny, if anything?

I would recommend that you except her desire not to work and together decide on weather or not she/ he will be paid .

Pidgythe2nd

You have just regurgitated exactly what l have said. Please re read what l have written before accusing me of “sprouting” incorrect info.

@wendy more employer bashing! Why don't we just not employ anyone, ever? Would that be preferable? I'm a key worker but my nanny does not want to work, and is not working, What would you recommend? Genuinely, what's your view on that?

Pidgythe2nd Please highlight where my information is incorrect...? what l am finding is that as soon as individuals are inconvenienced they are happy to manipulate the rules to suit their needs.

And another one!

@Wendy555 read the thread and stop spouting incorrect information. It’s totally misleading.

@Wendy555 what if a nanny for keyworkers doesn't want to work? What then would be a fair and reasonable approach?

A nanny can legally work if you or a partner are keyworkers. That’s it. If neither of you aren’t then she should not be working.

Nannies should not be working unless one or both parents are key workers. If they do work , how can you abide by the recommendation of social distancing. It would be impossible . When your nanny travels from home to work she is likely to come into contact with other people, she / he will therefore be putting your family at risk, adding to that all other childcare ,schools, nursery settings have closed for all children except key worker families , why would nannies be exempt. The rules are you are not allowed to visit family or friends so only your family should be in your home.

Yes agree it isn’t there for all non key workers, who can’t work from home, and don’t work in isolation, to get paid to not work when their job is still there.

I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking money from the government to furlough my nanny now.

@Bringonspring I agree I believe the furlough scheme is being misused. It was never designed to simply pay people “free” money because they don’t want to work. Its aimed at saving jobs where people would otherwise have no work and so be made redundant. That’s so in some nanny scenarios but not all.

Sorry, should say our nanny doesn’t want to come in, so we begrudgingly agreed she wouldn’t come in. I’ve explained that the risks are low to all involved, and we still need her/role is not redundant.
I wasn’t 100% clear on the guidelines and understand she is worried, so wasn’t going to force her to come using pay (even though I think we legally could have). We agreed to pay her for April even if furlough was confirmed definitely not to apply for nannies.
This lady is part of our family, I trust her with my babies, so our relationship is key, but sadly, as said above, she is replaceable.

I think this thread shows the confusion currently. It’s clear you can furlough when yourself have been impacted, I think you haven’t been financially impacted we move into grey territory.

Personally I don’t want to see furlough abused. My older son is at private school, his fees have stayed the same for next term but I know they have furloughed staff members. Why should the school qualify for furlough if their income hasn’t changed?

Why are certain firms still paying dividends to shareholders and qualifying for furlough, they should not pay dividends and not furlough staff

This is what worries me.
A nanny can legally work and in our case we do want our nanny to work, but have agreed short term she won’t come in.
She was already mentioning furlough very early on, and I’m certain she thinks we’ll be Doing this indefinitely.
We’ll review on day 21and if she doesn’t come back furlough will be stopped as I am increasingly thinking I’ll get a temporary nanny.

Sorry my language isn’t good above. I meant it’s ‘not backtracking’

Why do you think someone would qualify because they just don’t want to work?

@childcare if parents are still working (or keyworkers) then they still need childcare. Its not a redundancy scenario. Their “operations” are not affected or impacted

The Government website says “ It is designed to help employers whose operations have been severely affected by coronavirus (COVID-19) to retain their employees and protect the UK economy. However, all employers are eligible to claim under the scheme and the government recognises different businesses will face different impacts from coronavirus.” I would think nanny employers at least fit into this latter category.

What have you seen that’s led you to conclude the Gov is backtracking?

Sadly the tax system always comes after those where it is easier to get. A simple calculation shows if my salary was cut during the period.

It’s backtrack, the scheme is designed for those that have to furlough not those that do not work for home, you of course have that right but the options are sick pay (if in a vulnerable category) or UC.

If your employers have been furloughed then you qualify.

Do you really think HMRC is going to be chasing after working parents/individuals who are nanny employers, rather than businesses with many employees on furlough? And interrogating those same individuals about whether they had interpreted unclear guidance and mixed messages? Honestly, HMRC have better things to do and I think most parents who are furloughing their nanny are just trying to do the right thing to contain coronavirus and limit spread to their nanny, themselves and the general public, which is also what the government is trying to achieve. All the rest is just scare-mongering in my opinion.

I also think it’s complete nonsense that HMRC will charge non-businesses additional income tax on the amount of the furlough payment. They are charging businesses tax because those businesses are/will be deducting salary as an expense against their profits and thereby paying less tax on their profits. Therefore taxing the furlough payment is to make sure the business save on the tax without having had the expense.

Unfortunately nanny employers don’t get an income tax deduction for paying nanny salary (even though the expense is purely to enable us to work). Therefore there is no need to tax us on the furlough payment, which merely put us back in the position we would have been if we hadn’t paid the nanny (or 80% thereof).

I do think childcare expenses should be seen as a cost of employment and therefore parents should get full income tax deduction in relation to childcare expenses, but that is another matter!

Personal opinion is not “fact” I’m afraid

@reddot it’s not so much “back track” as “check eligibility” as HMRC put it. If they later consider the employer/employee scenario does not come within the scheme they’ll ask the employer for the money back (with interest). A clear furlough scenario is (eg) both parents themselves furloughed so no need for childcare. However if both parents WFH (or keyworkers and working) they still need childcare. In the last scenario the nanny can work and is needed to work so it’s not a furlough scenario. It’s designed to preserve jobs under threat of redundancy. HMRC have already said its widely open to fraud/false claims and have been clear they’ll be scrutinising claims after the event.

Just reading some of the latest posts and wondering why there is a fear that HMRC will backtrack? Where has this been said?

@sociallydistained can you reference where you’re getting this info from about key workers? I’ve not seen any guidance from official sources (eg gov.co.uk.....Martin Lewis, videos of This Morning, the Nanny Association websites and chat groups don’t count I’m afraid).

I’m genuinely interested and happy to be corrected but I can’t see it makes any difference to actually needing a nanny whether someone is a key worker or not. The job is still there in many cases. You can’t just choose not to come in. In any case, key worker children can go to school can’t they?

What about key workers nanny not wanting to come in?

That does not include keyworkers by the way. Not rude at all. Just fact.