AIBU Nanny Travel costs

[intheshedyes]

Hello all,

We hired a new part time nanny who does the morning and after school runs. Two of my children need a train to get to school so pay my nanny travel costs from going to take them to school in the morning and then when she is bringing them back home.

In the mornings, my nanny rides her bike and parks her bike near our closest station. She asked me that once she drops the children to school, can she use the top up travel card, to come back to the station and pick up her bike to drive home.

AIBU to say no. I don't want to pay too much travel as it is!

[quote CeeceeBloomingdale]@BewareTheBeardedDragon Of course but OP said she pays her the full rate so I'm assuming it's not split shifts.

Also it's not the same for the nanny as your analogy as she would have no need to go to the employers home, her normal place of work, before picking up the children from school. Travelling to the school for pick up IS her work.[/quote]
I didn't say that.

You are being massively unreasonable and I’m surprised you need to ask. She shouldn’t be covering her own costs for taking your children to school, you pay for her return fair both ways. You said you don’t want to pay out too much but if you’re not willing to do it yourself, then you need to pay your nanny the costs of the return both ways otherwise you are in affect leaving her stranded and making her pay for half the costs for your children.

@Bagamoyo1

No, nanny needs to go back to OP's to get her bike which she had to leave near OP's house order to collect the children and get on the train with the children.

I assume people would think this is less clear cut if it was a car, no one would expect to be left without their car all day.

The school is obviously a decent distance from OP's home since they get the train to school.

The people who I have spoken to do not pay for their nanny's travel fares, even when they take their children out to various of places

Exploitative employers then.

If you choose not to claim travel expenses for work, that is your choice. But you can't impose your choice on an employee.

It's odd you are so perplexed about this. Of course you pay your nanny's travel costs when she is incurring costs in working for you.

The fact that the nanny lives near the school is fairly significant and should have been included in the OP as it changes things.

Unless OP specifically advertised for a nanny that lived near her children's school, it's immaterial where the nanny lives.
Nanny's "workplace" is either OP's home or the station (wherever she picks the DC up from). Therefore OP either pays for nanny to travel workplace to school and back again, twice a day. Or OP pays to retain the nanny all day in which case she only has to pay one lot of going to school travel and one lot of coming back travel as she's then been paying the nanny to hang about all day.

Is the extra travel on public transport (wouldn't you get a weekly/monthly pass) so prohibitive that this is even a big deal?

Op flip the question to this ......
Do you want to loose your nanny for the sake of a train fare?
If not. Then pay it and move on.
If the fare is causing you problems then re advertise the job, but state expenses are only paid if children present .

MN can sometimes be way OTT when it comes to nanny and puppy questions. The OP asked if she was being unreasonable and on the first page she admitted it and said she would pay her. The first page!

@intheshedyes

I think some of the posts have been pragmatic. Being called tight, no common sense, stupid, fool, is very offensive.

The people who I have spoken to do not pay for their nanny's travel fares, even when they take their children out to various of places.

I find it hard to believe you only know terrible people with nannies so meek they accept being out of pocket for their job.

If the thread is upsetting you then just log off rather than keep making stuff up! You don't claim for expenses, nobody you know pays their nanny properly, you might have a learning disability... yeah, okay.

Hi Op
I have an after school nanny job where I leave my house at 3pm and travel four miles in my car to the village where I pick up my charge at 3.15. I am paid £12 net an hour and work until 7pm,where she rounds it up to four hours,so I am paid £3 for the quarter of an hour,which covers my petrol.
I suppose she doesn't have to, but little things like that make for a good relationship going forward.

‘ The people who I have spoken to do not pay for their nanny's travel fares, even when they take their children out to various of places’

Wow, that’s so tight. If I was the nanny that would result in the kids going to walkable places only.

@intheshedyes

"..or that she wouldn't travel back and would simply hang around near the school all day..."

Of course not.

She does a few hours during the week and less on school holidays (we pay her full rate incase anyone asks). I wasn't too sure if a season ticket would be worth it. I will look into it.

@intheshedyes You mentioned paying her full rate here.

Did you just mean you pay her the normal wage in the school holidays even if she does less? I took full rate to mean paying her a full day, which many do to retain the services of their nanny. Does she do split shifts in her contract? Without this information the replies are meaningless!

@intheshedyes

"I wondered if Nanny lived very near the school but chose to ride her bike to go to work. In which case she would be riding the bike to OPs home then getting the train to school for drop off. If she had travelled to work on the train she wouldn't need to come back to the station to pick up her bike as she is already nearly home"

Yes. She lives near school but rides her bike to work.

But why should the nanny be forced to spend her own money on getting a train to work when she can get a bike?

Am I missing something here?

Do other jobs get paid to travel to and from work?

Yes, pay for expenses incurred during work, but why would she be paid to arrive to work? I don't have a Nanny, but have never had a job that paid my comute to work. Business meetings, and courses yes.

Ordinary commuting, according to HMRC, is any travel between a permanent workplace and home, or any other place which is not a workplace. That means that claiming travel expenses from home to work is not usually acceptable in HMRC's eyes.

Even HMRC agree!

@fromdownwest yes, you’re missing quite a lot! That’s not the bone of contention at all.

If you lived in Manchester would you still expect your employer to pay for you to return to London though?

If my employer scheduled me into a meeting London at 9am and another at 4pm, then I would expect them to pay me for the day if I'm unable to return home. If it was - eg office in Canary Wharf and 2 similarly timed meetings in Piccadilly then yes, I would expect to reclaim the costs of returning to Canary Wharf in between.

I travel to many places due to work but do not claim back travel expenses.

I don't claim travel expenses. We knew about claiming them when I started. But knowing when to calculate and when from blah blah. I found it all confusing. So didn't bother.

The people who I have spoken to do not pay for their nanny's travel fares, even when they take their children out to various of places.

None of the above matters OP. My boss frequently forgets to give his receipts to his PA to do his expenses whereas I never forget to do mine. The difference is he earns £350k pa so he can afford to be lax with it!

Just because you don't claim, doesn't mean the nanny shouldn't be reimbursed for travelling from her place of work to school and back.

"Did you just mean you pay her the normal wage in the school holidays even if she does less?"

Yes.

Yes. It's split shifts but we pay her more than her rate.

Give yer head a wobble OP.

From the OP's other thread:
25intheshedyes

We pay her 10 hours a week at £14.00 he gross. It's more of an after school nanny role except she does morning drop offs.

@fromdownwest

Am I missing something here?

Do other jobs get paid to travel to and from work?

Yes, pay for expenses incurred during work, but why would she be paid to arrive to work? I don't have a Nanny, but have never had a job that paid my comute to work. Business meetings, and courses yes.

Ordinary commuting, according to HMRC, is any travel between a permanent workplace and home, or any other place which is not a workplace. That means that claiming travel expenses from home to work is not usually acceptable in HMRC's eyes.

Even HMRC agree!

The thread isn't about ordinary commuting, the nanny already "commuted" to the OP's home. This is about train fair to and from bringing the kids to school as part of the nanny job.

So she's basically being paid a minimal wage for a small number of hours, over two sessions every day meaning she can't even take on other work to supplement her income. Pay her expenses, you'll never replace her with a contract like that.

We pay her 10 hours a week at £14.00 he gross.

Yep. That what we pay her for. But we actually pay her way more than this due to various of things which I wish not to state as its outing.

@luxxlisbon - Ah, well that is different then.

If the Nanny has made her way to your home on her own expense, then any expenses accrued during her activites with the children should be paid for? Or am I missing something else?

I am always puzzled by people who are happy to pay full price for luxuries (could be hairdressers, nails, holidays, whatever)

but are so resentful to spend a penny on childcare.

@CeeceeBloomingdale

So she's basically being paid a minimal wage for a small number of hours, over two sessions every day meaning she can't even take on other work to supplement her income. Pay her expenses, you'll never replace her with a contract like that.

She takes on other work CeeCee. We are not her only employer. We wanted her for more hours but had to negotiate due to other work commitment she has and she was worried about paying too much tax. Therefore we agreed on our current set up for now and things may change once Lockdown restriction eases.