We used a cleaning agency last week for a one-off clean. They did a great job so I was about to sign them up for a regular weekly service but I've read into the T&Cs and because the charge is less for regular cleaning than one-off cleans, the cleaner gets less than the London living wage. We're in SW London so I'm not comfortable with that.
One option is that we tell the agency we want to pay her more. They might go for that, though maybe they'd want a cut of her extra pay too, so she'd be no better off? I'm not sure.
Or we could sign up for the regular clean and as we'd be paying her part of the fee in cash anyway, we pay her the extra and that's that. But that puts us in a position from the start where there's a lack of transparency between us-the agency, and given that their fee is to make the intro and manage the relationship, that's not a helpful precedent.
Or we go somewhere else completely. But she was really, really terrific and we have had several cleaners in the last few years who were lovely people but basically rubbish at cleaning and so I'd rather give the work to someone good if I can.
Not sure what we ought to do, tbh.