Paying for child care during COVID

[Peter1977]

Hi can anyone give me some advice please, during this time I am still working but my wife has been furloughed as we have 3kids at home and working from home was impossible. We have a just turned 1year old who usually gives to a child minder and sometimes her sister who is 6goes there also after school. We didn't feel comfortable sending them to the child minder as wife was home and it just adds more risk.
The child minder has now got in touch and says she expects 100% pay during this time even though she hasn't had the kids and won't until all this calms down. She is a lovely lady and great at her job and we don't want to fall out so it's very awkward,but everyone I talk to seems to only be paying a retaining fee to keep the place and there child minder is then claiming.
Please help on this very tricky situation.

@Peter1977, yes it does matter if you are a key worker because if you are she can continue to take your children and thus is still offering a service and you are therefore still required to pay.

If you are not a key worker the situation is different and the CMA ruling is you should not have to pay for services not provided. This may of course cause hardship to the childminder in the meantime so I would suggest speaking to her and say you understand her government support won’t come through immediately and that she can’t charge for when she isn’t providing care, but if there is a cash flow issue why not start charging you for future months now so she has some money coming in and you are in credit when you go back.

But you still need to pay your childminder if you want her to be still in business and able to take your children when this is all over. Your wife is getting 80% of her pay and you are getting 100% off yours, so you are still able to pay her a good 90% of her usual fee. Then she will be doing what your wife is currently doing. Getting paid for not working so the Bill's can be paid. If it's ok for your wife, why is it not ok for your childminder?

As a childminder, please don't think we will be getting a full months pay from the self employed grant. It is 80% of our profit only: so less than a third of our income. I anticipate I will get around £250 x3 in June, when my monthly income should be around £1500. I have always invested in the children's resources and have been sending these home with tailored plans to each child's development stage. I have kept open and honest with my families throughout and as such, they are paying me what they can afford as a retainer and as payment for my home learning packs. If your childminder is not offering a service at all, offer a reduced rate that you can afford as a retainer. But don't forget that she still has fees to pay out for ongoing training, insurance and registration fees, as well as her own mortgage and bills. She's not trying it on, she's trying to survive this just like us all.

In one post it said if even one parent is home they are expected to have the children at home, even if the other is a key worker.
Zochan sounds like you do a brilliant job and gave been great through all this, we haven't really heard from our CM as she knew the wife was home so we just left it there really. She has only been in touch through a tx saying that she still expecting 100% payment from us, although not as blunt as that.
She is great with the kids and they love her and we really don't want it to be awkward.

So pay her! Stop trying to find excuses to get out of it. That is basically what you are doing.

Think you need to have a look at my other posts sleepingchild

@Peter1977

I think it depends on each area and demand - if high demand for places then it was one parent - in others it was two

Fact is you have taken a hit on income due to furlough and the logical thing is to pass that on - if you are 20% down then pay her 80%. My income was halved so offered 50% but this was declined. We had been with our childminder for years and thought we had a good friendly relationship and sadly it is now awkward and I feel like we were just walking cheque books to her

@user2085372673 that’s why I kept paying mine at first- I didn’t want to be benefiting financially from the situation as me and DH are still on normal pay.

However my childminder is closed, she has a shielded family member so can’t open. Both me and DH are key workers and so on the (luckily very few) days I needed to work my DH had to take unpaid leave. We therefore now only pay roughly 50% of the childminder fees as we can’t afford to pay her fully while DH is taking unpaid leave to look after our children.

ivfgottostaypositive that's exactly how we feel, we know other children that are going to her and they have been told don't worry about it she is claiming??? But that is only from them so don't know how true, we will be going down to have a chat with her later about it all,I have had some great advice on here and will surely be bringing it up. We didn't even think about all this,I hope she will take our comments on board and take the %as I just think exactly the same, it will be very awkward between us after all this, money is a horrible thing. The only reason we got into this is that every single person we know isn't paying 100%as they have the kids at home.

Whether you disagree that your wife is being to do nothing she is. I don’t have an issue with individuals receiving the payments during this time but you need to be fair.
If you CM is not eligible to receive anything, or has to wait then you can discuss a % arrangement and hopefully come up with something that you are both happy with so she receives something just now until she starts to receive her payments.
I wouldn’t look to profit from the situation, either of you.

You can refuse to pay her but remember you want to have a relationship post this and this could affect the relationship which I wouldn’t be comfortable with.

Ye we are definitely not trying to profit from this rubbish situation at all,we just want what is fair,and the tx was just a bit of a shock without any dialog,so when we asked our friends, every one of them had said they are paying a percentage to keep the place which to me is fair.
That's why I have come in here and created an account just to see what other people think or are doing before we go down to speak with her.
Thanks

@ZoChan Why is your profit so low? Do you have really high expenses? Have you misunderstood? If you earn 1500 net a month on average, then you will get 80%. I don't know how it can possible be a third of your income unless you are marking most of it down as expenses

Feels like paying for something you are not getting.

‘Bit like your wife's employer...’

You are not a childminder’s employer though, they are self-employed. It’s not the parents role to cover the cost of this, just like you wouldn’t cover sick, holiday or maternity pay.

@Pinkblueberry
*
You are not a childminder’s employer though, they are self-employed. It’s not the parents role to cover the cost of this, just like you wouldn’t cover sick, holiday or maternity pay.*

The majority of childminders charge 100% for holiday - they are the only self employed people I know who get away with it but unfortunately parents need them and so we have no choice

@ZoChan Are you thinking that profit has to be over the tax-free amount maybe? That's the only way I can get close to your numbers, but that's not the case. Profit is just all your income minus expenses, it doesn't have to be profit over the 12.5k whatever tax-free allowance. Hopefully you'll get a pleasant surprise if you've misunderstood it!

@ZoChan - You mentioned the outgoings that childminders have - Ofsted registration is about £35 annually, insurance about £60 annually. There is no training during lockdown. So what she will have to find is her normal mortgage and bills, the same as everyone else.

To be honest I've little sympathy for some childminders; as others have mentioned, I think charging 100% for their holidays whilst being self employed is wrong, as is charging in full for bank holidays despite refusing to work them. I think some of them (not all) are getting a taste of their own medicine. Parents are not obliged to pay anything as their contacts are unenforceable.

Pinkblueberry no that is wrong. My wife's employer's aren't paying her

If your wife is furloughed then her employer has the right to recall her back with 48 hours notice

You will be needing the childminder then, at short notice

@ivfgottostaypositive I work term time and so don’t pay any of the holidays. If my CM can’t take DS because of illness in her part or an appointment we get a refund. If my DS is poorly or I decide to not send him for the day, usually because DH is off work and keeps him and takes him out for the day, we still pay. That’s always seemed like a fair and sensible contract. When my CM said she wasn’t allowed to provide the service anymore she not only said we didn’t need to pay, she offered to refund money already pre-paid for the next month. I didn’t take it, it will roll over to the next invoice. It’s a shit situation obviously, but offering to pay (especially the full amount) for a service that we’re not receiving would feel like giving charity. I would feel awkward offering it like she’s somehow needy and I know she would not accept. I suppose it depends on individual childminders and their circumstances - but that does seems like an unfair lottery for the parents. If your childminder is financially secure or has a well paid spouse like mine I don’t pay, and am even offered an immediate refund - but if your childminder is less well off you need to look after and support them as though they’re a dependent of yours - or an employee, which they are not. I don’t tell my childminder how to do her job, I’m not her boss - she’s very much her own boss.

@Pinkblueberry

Sounds like you have a good childminder! We are expected to pay for 51 weeks of the year including all bank holidays

My childminder isn't less well off - her husband is a self employed director of own company and in a usual year far exceeds our income.

She isn't an employee we are in fact her customers but there is little "customer service" back - refusals to sign up to tax free account and the 30 hours (even though the hourly rate paid by the LA is higher than her usual daily rate and it's paid upfront per term). We've had to battle for everything so I guess I'm relieved we can walk away now

Why on earth would she not sign up to the tax free account? It doesn't cost her anything but benefits parents.
The 30 hour funding I can sort of understand.

My childminder doesn’t charge for any holidays, I pay a fair rate during the day, and she accepts the 30 hours funding. I really don’t want to lose her which is why I have been paying her what I can.

@malovitt

She said she wasn't comfortable with some of the questions the HMRC asked on the application form.....🤔

At one point our monthly fee to her was £900 - (the same as our mortgage) and I was only getting the lowest amount in childcare vouchers so the tax free account would have been a big help for us.....

30 hour funding would have meant a pay rise for her as in my area they actually pay above the usual hourly rate for childminders but I don't think she could be bothered with the application forms (or maybe the LA knowing her business?)

I'm currently furloughed myself but that said if I was on ful I would prob give my childminder 20% to help tide through even though ofsted have advices she can't charge as I like her and she helps us a lot and we all need to live, I'm sure others would do the same and government help for self employed is coming and being fast tracked to payments end of this month instead of June

That said I appreciate her even more as she's admitted ofsted said she can't charge, rather than putting wording togther and trying to find a way to charge to keep places ( we all know those spaces wouldn't have gone either) sometimes honesty is the best policy and people appreciate and then help you out as we're all human

Unfortunately I'm furloughed so would struggle to right now but once back on full pay and if my son isn't back yet I would give her a small percentage. I've already paid half of first the month he goes back in advance too to help with cash flow, also left a lovely hamper at her door :)

My mother once said, if you haven't got anything nice to say,don't say anything at all. Maybe some need to take that advice going forward and step away from the keyboard

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