Possibly illegal childcare arrangement

[Radiatorvalves]

My first question is whether this is ok, and second is, if not, what should I do if anything.

So I was talking to an acquaintance who has gone back to work FT after first baby, and asked whether baby was going to nursery. She explained that they had a live in nanny to save money. Nanny gets up on week nights when baby wakes at 3am.

I have had APs for years and know what is and what isn't allowed for APs, but what she described sounded very different.

Nanny is from Romania and isn't qualified but has lots of experience - she is 45. She lives with family but (from what I understood) has child FT (very different from the APs who do 25 hours a week). Nanny is paid less than £100pw and as my acquaintance said, less than NMW. She thought that was ok as she gets board and lodging. Apparently they also pay for insurance.

Just about everything that was said to me worried me and as the conversation continued I got more concerned.

The person knows I have AP experience and that I am a solicitor.... I made it clear that I am no expert, but did ask about tax (she thinks they might be paying some, but not much as it is under threshold - her DH sorted it all) and I also said that I wasn't sure you could justify less than NMW on the basis the person has board.

Can anyone give me chapter and verse as to what is allowed in the following situation...
Having a live in unqualified nanny of 45 yo.
Working at least 40 hours pw, although I suspect more given the comments about getting up in the night.
Presumably you could pay NMW and offset a reasonable amount for board and bed? Is this right?

And any advice as to what I should do? Depending on what you lovely MN people come back with, I intend to tell her exactly what the law says... This sounds like classic exploitation to me.

Thanks!

domestic servitude?

If she is working 40+ hours then she is not living as 'one of the family'

I thought that she would be eligible for NMW in these circumstances?

She is a nanny not an au pair and is eligible for NMW

Definition of au pair HERE

I'm one of the posters that thinks the rights of au pairs need to be clarified and that they should be renumerated properly. A lot of au pairs are really underpaid for what they do.

Is your acquaintance from a different culture? In many countries, including the one I am currently in, this arrangement is normal. The 'helper' is considered very much part of the family. People who have suffered extreme poverty and repression can be very happy working in a safe, warm, clean home with a family.

Moopsboopsmum. I think they would be even happier if they were paid properly. Just because they come from different countries or cultures (?) where they have been exploited doesn't mean they should be happy to be slightly less exploited in this country.
i hope people don't hire au pairs or nannies from other countries with the view that they are doing them a favour. .

Moopsboopsmum Hurrah for extreme poverty and oppression then, eh.

That's right ladies get stuck in. Accuse me of supporting poverty and repression. Typical MN.

It depends if the nanny is treated as an equal to the other adults in the household when the parents are not at work. If they all eat together, socialise together and consider their family unit to include this woman then NMW doesn't apply.

If she spends her off-duty waking hours separate from the rest of the family, she is an ordinary employee and the maximum that can be deducted from NMW for living expenses is only £5ish per day so the arrangement is almost certainly illegal.

It is between the individuals really but yes it does sound rather exploitative.

Sorry Moopsboopsmum, it may not have been your intention but that is the argument used by exploitative employers all around the world.

I think it's as dodgy as hell - we see it a lot paying people ap money for full time nanny work - and yeah the excuse is 'they are from a poor country '

For this type of scenario , even round here the nanny is usually paid at least £600 PCM - and that's for school age kids

Legally I don't know and others do but morally - I think they are massively exploiting her and they should be ashamed

The key questions (to me at least) are:

a) is the deduction for board and lodging a fair amount?
b) does she get a regular day off and holiday allowance?
c) is she free to come and go from the house and maintain contact with her family and friends?

Working 40 hours a week is not something done by someone living as part of a family. It's done by an employee. As a one off it might be ok if everything about the job fits an au pair but if it typical of the job then the employee is a nanny.

It's irrelevant if the employee is happy with the arrangement or comes from a poor background you don't get to choose whether or not to pay NMW
If I employed someone as a 'faux' au pair I would be worried that they would come back later on an demand NMW.

BTW there is nothing wrong with proper au pair positions. The ones where someone comes over to the UK to learn the language and experience the culture and where they genuinely live as one of the family.

Actually working 40 hours a week is done by many members of many families! Except of course, we don't count caring as work unless it's paid for.

I'm not in favour of anyone getting less than the living wage, let alone the NMW, but some people prefer a different approach to working. There's a place not far from here where people work entirely as a co-operative doing swaps and childcare is offered as part of this e.g. there's someone providing childcare for someone who is offering them evening training in a specific craft. I think without details and the perspective of the individual in question you can't know if this is exploitation.

I used to take care of a local woman's kid twice weekly because she was setting up a business and couldn't afford "proper childcare" for the hours she was looking for and I was "between jobs". The benefit to me was it gave extra routine to my life at a time I was really struggling with the effects of being unemployed and it made me feel good about myself? Was she exploiting me?

We just don't have enough details to know that this isn't exactly what this woman wants for now.

By the way, that doesn't mean I think the "employer" might not be breaking the law and that this should be dealt with, but let's not assume paternalistically that this isn't an arrangement that is mutually convenient because it isn't one we can imagine wanting ourselves.

Thanks everyone for your responses. It has given me a lot to think about. I will see my acquaintance later this week, and will probe a bit more.

I may have got the wrong end of the stick, but I think not. It was my firm impression that they want a FT nanny who does nights as well (she actually said that they, the parents, do get up on weekend nights as one person can't do it all the time), but they are paying peanuts because she is from an Eastern European country. The host family are also not English, but from a different country than the nanny.

Fusion....I agree with what you are saying. Although I don't have full facts, I don't think this is a mutually beneficial situation like the ones you describe. I need to find out more. If she is breaking the law I will tell her so.

My only knowledge of 'live in' is through my step D and friends having done it at Butlins. They got NMW and then their board and lodgings were taken from them, leaving them with a bit to piss it up on!

I would love £100 a week in my hands after every bill had been paid, not a chance of that with my DPs wages.

The tax thing would be the only dodgy area, as with NI. It should be being paid on a 40+ hour week on NMW and should be deducted before board and lodging, so on gross income!

I've done a live-in job with deductions for bed and board. My hours were rather more like this nanny's than those of an au pair.

A crucial factor that may have been overlooked is that although deductions can be made for housing, food etc (I had a bedsit with en suite shower room and three meals a day seven days a week) there is a limit to those deductions. From memory at the time you couldn't be taken more than 80p/hour under NMW - so this nanny couldn't be paid less than £5.90/h even if she had a 500sqft suite and caviar three times a day.

The rules might have changed but it would seem odd to abandon that principle.

Actually working 40 hours a week is done by many members of many families! Except of course, we don't count caring as work unless it's paid for.

Exactly. Wives and mothers do this sort of work all the time!

I do think they should pay her as much money as she helps them save - which probably is a lot if she also takes care of the children while they are sick, etc. She should be insured and all that.

But I do not view the arrangement with her living with the family as problematic as such, as long as she has a decent room (I read about families in Brazil who let their maids sleep in a cupboard) and enough privacy.

It probably is a good deal for her. People earn a lot less in Romania than in other EU countries, and if she has shelter and food, she can afford to send some money home.
Of course that is no justification for paying her less money than her work helps them save.

I personally think that being a wife and mother in your own house, looking after your own children is a hell of a lot easier than living in someone else's house, looking after someone else's children.

And everyone saying that because the woman comes from a poor country she will be happier with less, you could also say that working in another country where she may not even speak the language, far away from her friends and family is an added burden and not a case of her being glad of a warm house and some food.

Living as a family member (having your own room, eating all meals with the family and spending evenings in the household) is quite common in lots of Eastern European countries in exchange for some care of the elderly or children in the household. Often there is no wage on top of that, or a small one, as the wage is to live as part of the family which can lead to a better quality of life than how much wage would have to be paid to live independently/pay all bills/buy own food (if no state benefits at all or top ups). That's of course if you are not abused in any way- my experience of it is that such carers that will live in are in big demand as there aren't old people's homes in the same way which would provide 24/7 care.

I think the issue here (if her tax is up to date) is the quantity of care for £400 spending money a month.

This sounds more like AP rates and not a full-time nanny. I am not sure what you can do about it though, who would be interested? The whole nanny sector is fairly unregulated, in that there are no quals for being a nanny anyway.

I have known EE women who have ended up in such situations but have felt exploited, usually a small time after arriving here and working out that other people get more, and their employers are then left in the lurch. Perhaps this will happen to your colleague.

"Living as a family member (having your own room, eating all meals with the family and spending evenings in the household) is quite common in lots of Eastern European countries in exchange for some care of the elderly or children in the household. Often there is no wage on top of that"

Whao! I haven't a clue about Eastern Europe, but that does surprise me. Here in Mexico carers cost a fortune and only work eight hour shifts.

But I still think that even if the employee comes from a country where they only eat rice once a day, they should not be employed under the conditions of their native country, but under the conditions of the country they are working in because, apart from their own human rights, this is unfair competition with the local people.

Things may have changed but when I worked for companies like PGL we were paid about £80pw but were given uniform/meals/accommodation/training etc which brings the total package up to well over NMW. So we were laid NMW but most of this was "in kind" rather than cash.