A mother's query about childminder holiday entitlement

Another thing grandparents need to consider if they register as a Childminder and receive payment is this: If they are already taxpayers they will pay tax from the earnings from childminding. If they are not paying tax now (on say a pension), the earnings from childminding might push them into the taxable pay bracket. They will have to declare the earnings to HMRC.

Hi happy mummy, I have spoken to the tax credits and ofsted and they do not need to have other mindees, but would have to meet the standard needed to be a CM they can have whichever children they want to as she would be actually qualified to have anyones children, bu does not have to, if that makes sense

KitKat2507, registering with Ofsted is not enough for you to qualify for tax credits where a grandparent is the childminder - they also have to have other mindees so you need to be sure you MIL is open to this. Its to stop abuse of tax credits.

there must be something wrong then if you have to pay full rate for your own holidays and hers and it is 2 - 4 weeks holiday not 6 have you got an ncma contract cos it says so on there in notes on back of pages you signed you might need to review your contract with your childminder as this sounds unreasonable amount as that is in effect 10 weeks holiday a year

I pay full rate when I am on holiday. my childminder has given me a list of her holidays for the year, 6 full weeks in total, this is actually more than my boss allows and pays me for, 4 of these weeks are during school holidays, so in effect i would not just be paying for before and after school but 4 full time weeks, as i dont drive it would be very difficult for me to go further afield, im actually looking into my mother in law looking after the girls but i want to be able to pay her, and if i want to be able to claim help towards paying her she then has to register with OFSTED.

I don't what kitkat's boss has to do with it since she is not the childminder's boss. And I think her problem is that she has to pay the childminder when the childminder is on holiday, but is happy to pay when it is she who is onholiday.

Kitkat, as you say that all the childminders in the area are in this together (which in my book is price fixing and ought to be illegal!) I think you are stuck. Is it possible to go further afield for a childminder? Or possibly you could ask the childminder to rearrange the pricing structure so that you don't pay when she is on hols but you pay a higher hourly rate so that it ends up the same amount of money on an annual basis. That way you could better budget for thime you have to pay another childminder.

do you take holidays from your childminder or do you work 52 weeks a year? do yoy get paid when your boss is on holiday?

The answer is you have allocated holidays but your childminder can not take a child on just for the week you are on holiday the way I work with my parents is if they have to find alternative childcare they don't pay as would in effect pay double for those periods however if a parent is going away they must pay as it is not my choice not to work while they are away and also I must still pay my assistant

the other option available is half rate for all holidays so if you and childminder can negotiate them they maybe the same as yours and you only pay half rate or you pay half rate for your holidays and for cm's holidays

thats my problem, there are only 4 childminders in our little village, they are all very close, and if i did not use my current one out of loyalty to her the others just would not have them, all their contracts are more or less the same! and i know they all know what each other charge parents as when i have used another one for a couple of days before the other one charged me to the £ the same as my current one. what i dont get, is childminders operate a business, she has company letter head and everything, however if my business was closed I would not make any money as i was not there to provide the service which I advertise. Ia anyone else having similar problems?

I would get around that scenario by not signing that contract. AS you have already pointed out you are committed not because she has any entitlement but because you agreed to it in a written contract. I only offer paid holidays to my employees and they have to ask me if they can take holiday on a certain date. Most of us can't afford to pay for childcare twice. Heck, a lot of people can't afford to pay for it once.

I think I would politely try to renegotiate the contract. And if she said no I would have to consider looking for another childminder.

ok, hi everyone, i have found this thread through google as i have the problem of my childminder charging for holidays, please dont misunderstand i do not begrudge her charging, on looking into this she is not "entitled" to charge which is what i was led to believe however it is in her contract which in effect means she can charge, now i work full time as does my partner, we do get help with childcare but not alot, we pay a cost of 235 (we get 105 from TaxCredt) per week this is for a full time place for my youngest (i pay a full day although she is at nursery half of it) and a couple of hours for my oldest although she pro ratas the school holidays in so it is the same rate every week if that makes sense! She will take 4 weeks holiday a year, she chooses 2 weeks in the summer holidays, becasue of our jobs we cannot take holidays then so will have no choice but to pay someone else to have the girls full time for the 2 weeks, so lets say they charge 235, i have contaced the tax credit office and you CANNOT claim help for another childminder for the same weeks as you have already claimed for someone else! so basically my childminders holiday will cost me 375 per week, this is actually more than i earn, so i just wonder how do people actually afford to do this? I adore my childminder but i simply cannot get my head around this at all.

i charge 4 weeks half pay for holidays and charge for all bank hols, but dont work them. if mindees go on hols at dif time to me, they pay full fee.

all in contract, policies etc etc.

if they dont like it, they dont choose me.

suppose you could phone and just say your childcare as gone up tht week and give them the new figure you dont even need to tell them the exact reason why could be that your using more hour or anything

tracey333 I suggest you contact working famillies tax and ask them if they can help you? I have no idea if this is possible but if you have agreed and signed the contract saying you will pay for her holidays then you will be legally bound to do just that. As a childminder myself I charge for holidays, I give out a list of my holiday dates at the start of the year so that parents can try to take the same time off as me if possible so that they don't have to pay out twice if we can possibly help it.

It will be in your contract tracy, but it does sound pretty standard for a CM.

last year we took the same hoilday 1 week at a time june aug may , cause we had no hoilday plans , and were feflexeable , this year we book a foreign hoilday which we have had to take in school summer hoilday cause we have older children in high school ,

could you not try and take yours at the sametime, i dont understand why she lets the parents pick them i pick my own holidays. i did have a parent in the past who had to change to a nursery after she had she second child as she could not get any1 to watch the 2 kids when i took my holiday was easier to find some1 when it was just one but was hard once she had 2

thanks but this is not possible for me as i have no one else to take care of them , this is why i got a child minder , she says the parents picked her hoildays before i started , and takes them every year even though some perents have now left.

depends every childminder is different i gave my parents a list of holidays at the start of jan and my parents have then put in the same holidays at wrk so we are both off at the sametime. when they havent been able to get them they get friend,family, neighbour to help they didnt pay another childcare provider

i am confused, i have 2 children that go to a childminder 5days a week to enable me to work part time 4 hours aday this is funded mainly by d.w.p payments (tax credits) my child minder has told me that i have to pay her whilst i am on hoilday to keep the places , as well as her 3 weeks hoilday as hoilday pay. is this right as i have to make alternative child care plans whilist she on hoilday help how to i pay twice help

Sorry, should have said looney and not Katy.

What about the parents having a steady childcare budget? If they pay you a set rate every month and then have to also pay someone else when you take holiday then they are paying double for the holiday time.

As Katy pointed out, it is your job to budget for your holidays, just like all other self employed people. I don't see that your ability to budget for your holiday is more important than a parent's ability to pay for childcare and go to work.

Not read all comments - I'm a registered childminder with this week off (ha ha) with three children of my own how is this supposed to be? Just read their schools are closed tomorrow!

Anyway - the government is trying to get all parents with kids aged 10 back to work - how is this supposed to happen with the snow situation?

How would parents cope without us childminders and nannys?

No pudding, you don't define yourself as a worker, any more than you define yourself as self-employed; your status is determined by the facts.

You quote "It is possible, in some limited cases, to be self-employed for tax purposes but classified as a 'worker' or an 'employee' for employment rights purposes", but you don't seem to have looked into what those limited cases are.

Read this; the information on that page is not perfect, and is a little out of date, but it will do.

You will see that Childminders cannot be workers because they do not serve a (single) employer, they provide a service to a number of customers.

THANK YOU Cheryl

yea therefore a childminder is self employed but is being called a wrker so may have to the holiday rights of a wrker