Childminder holiday fees

[mugelbbub]

I am a teacher and will not be requiring the services of my childminder for the school holidays. Her rate is half pay over the holidays, which I understand to be the norm, but she also requires an additional 2 weeks full pay as her holiday pay. All the children she minds are teachers children and she makes it policy not to work in the school holidays as she has her own children. The half fee I understand is the retainer, but I already paid a retainer fee of nearly £2000 when I decided to use her service back in January. Does this all seem normal? It all seems alittle excessive the cost of looking after the baby myself!

Thing is, Pippin, that's the problem with childminding. You're poorly paid and when coupled with your workload, it makes me wonder why anyone does it.

But of course, many women chose it because it's a opportunity to stay at home with their own children. Unfortunately, it's never going to be financially rewarding and trying to make it more so by expecting parents to pay you as they would an employee is going to get their back up.

I don't use a CM btw, this is just an impartial view.

It is not ripping off - it is trying to be entirely transparent with parents. I want my mindees parents to know exactly what they are paying for so I offer what is in effect an "open book" approach.

Nothing is included in my basic rate for minding (which is on the low side in my locality!). I then build up a total price based on the parent's requirements - do they want meals; do they want nappies provided, etc. etc. I also list how I charge for Bank Holidays so that contrary to building these things into the regular fee and them being hidden, there is complete visibility and transparency.

If I charged £5.50 per hour for a term-time only contract, inflated to cover the 12 or so weeks school holiday that I did not then appear to be charging for, do you think the parent would be happy being "in the dark" or would they sooner pay £4.10 per hour on a year round basis - I think the latter - I know I certainly would.

I believe that transparency should prevail - too many times there is this so-called "bundling" of fees to include everything. My sister's child goes to a minder who includes nappies and wipes in her fees but the minder uses Pampers and if the parent wants to provide their own because they prefer Huggies then guess what, there is no reduction! Charges should be unbundled so the parent can know what they are getting.

Additionally it is important to point out that many other self-employed people do receive holiday pay etc. So often, self-employed people are only thought of as having many different customers for short term jobs such as plumbers, electricians etc., but many self-employed people working on a retained basis for one "customer" or "client" continuously maybe for a number of years, do frequently receive the same benefits as traditional employees.

Well my best friend is a self-employed management consultant. She has worked for the same company for 3yrs and she doesn't get paid holiday. Most of her contracts at at least a year yet holiday/sick pay is her responsibility. DH's good friend is a self-employed chartered accountant who continously has the same clients but they don't pay him holiday pay either.

I really think this very rarely happens, if at all. Unless you can explain to me what sort of self-employed people you are talking about as we happen to know quite a few. Another friend is an actuary who does freelance consultancy. He charges £1500 a day and his wife is very thorough at creaming off so much for holiday and sickness insurance.

I would not have signed a contract like that in the first place and would move in an instant if new terms like that were brought in. I would never pay a s/e person for their holidays or when they were not available to work.

There are perks to being s/e yet one of them is not paid training or holidays.

This is one of the reasons I would always choose a nursery if ever in that position.

Unbundle fees all you want, but a lot of people will be put off using a childminder if they think they will have to pay for childcare when it is not available and they will have to make other arrangements.

If you are ok with losing custom to nurseries for that reason then that's your call. I wouldn't be.

Although I do not subscribe to them, I believe the NCMA itself recommends that childminders charge 50% for their time off.

Archstanton - I agree - childminding is poorly paid but we would loose custom hand over fist if we charged what we were 'worth' - iyswim.
I actually care passionately about the job i do and everything I do (work related) is centered around the children. All my training goes straight back into my practice. I DO try to be extremely supportive to my parents and in the main they (most) of them appreciate it.
It wasn't worth my while 'going out to work' and I have worked on and off with children since I was 16 and thought I'd give minding a shot. I discovered that I LOVED it - although its darned hard work. Over 9 years I have become extremely qualified and experienced, the longer I do it the more I like my job. the quality of minding (as in terms of my knowledge, provision, equipment, activities, multi agency working links) i offer is excellent - yet I still cannot charge anymore than my colleagues.
My youngest goes to an excellent first rate minder while I am at Uni - and I treasure her.

Skidooly - you have your opinion and obviously will not be convinced otherwise. Thats fine and i respect that, but please think before you make such sweeping statements such as 'ripping off' - as i believe its unnecessary and very offensive to the majority of excellent minders out there striving to a) make a living for their own families and b)provide excellent service to their families.
Of course, like any sector there wil be those who's business practices leave a bit to be desired - I don't deny but in the main many mindres provide quality and value for money

Sorry pipin if I seemed to imply that all childminders ripped people off. That is very far from what I believe.

Seriously? Some childminders want to be paid for times when they aren't available? Fine if you're employed by me, but as childminders always remind us on here, they are self-employed, so I don't see how the two go together at all.

my policy is that if i am open (which i do 51 wks of the year then they pay me full price, even if they choose not to use me. If i am closed then i do not get paid. i and my customers think this is fair. i only take retainers to keep a place open until they start with me.

As an aside, in many many companies, as an employee, you don't have absolute discretion to take your holiday when you want - its up to the employer to OK the dates before you take it.

So if a CM was expecting paid holiday, I would expect to be consulted on when its taken.

Skidoodly - apologies, I jsut realised i have not been spelling your name correctly.

Pippin I hadn't even noticed. I didn't mispell your name on purpose to make a point, I promise

My CM takes 4 weeks Holiday, 2 weeks term time, 2 weeks school holiday, it is in the contract that she is paid for these weeks - even if i have to find alternative childcare as i cant get cover to have the girls, in effect some weeks i pay twice for, now what the CM has been doing is Pro rata-ing for the year so during holidays and term time it is the same, 52 weeks per year. However I recently noticed after paying for the last 39 weeks the CM has not Pro rata-ed the figures correctly and in fact in accordance with the rates in the contract and the hours etc, the CM has been taking too much from me every week. What do I now do about this? should the CM have to pay back any miscalculation? This came to light when the CM calculated the new school years figures and I noticed the CM was adding weeks to the year in bank holidays and teacer training days which did not exist, then adding on 4 weeks holiday on top of the year, the CM has since recalclated after i pointed out it was not correct, the CM agreed the mistake, but has not mentioned that the year im currently paying is calculated with all the extra weeks too, and i dont have a clue how to even broach the subject so any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I'm not sure what advice you are looking for. She has overcharged you and must pay you back, of course.

Just say it to her.

How about:

"Would you prefer me to deduct the money you'll owe me from next year's pay, or would it be easier for you to give me a cheque for that amount now?"

Also - work out for yourself how much she has overcharged you by.

And also - don't trust her figures anymore.

Agree. I'm a childminder and would definitely expect to pay you back if I made a mistake. I've even forgotten to add overnight stays on a couple of times in the past (was fairly soon after having ds2) and I realised a few months later and just left it as it was MY MISTAKE. If I overcharged a parent I'd definitely expect to pay it back (I'm struggling majorly in the finance dept. since dh was made redundant last year BUT that doesn't matter, somehow I'd expect to pay it back - if spreading over the next year was an option then I'd be very happy with that )

I dropped the CM an email, i did not mention the exact figre but pointed out that obviously if she has calculated it the same as she was doing this years it wont be correct, I am less than impressed with the repsonse which was that she does not do credit notes and its too late to adjust the figure and it will stay the same weekly rate until the new figures kick in, in September! Not sure where I stand now, Its partly my fault i should have asked to see her calculation but i just went with the figure in good faith.

Im not expecting her to give me a cheque that would be a little unfair as i should have checked the figures, but to be unwilling to even look a it even now she knows the figure is too much, where does the contract stand as she is not charging as per the rate in the contract?

Err no KitKat - she has miscalculated and she owes you money.
She doesn't do credit notes!
her attitude is appalling, she is overcharging you.
If she doesn't look like she is paying it back then tell her how you will be re-cooping it.

Pippin, I am absolutely Gobsmacked by her attitude, she is basically saying that as i have been paying her and she calculated the figures in good faith then Tough! and the figure is not a couple of pounds it is hundreds!

If your contract says one thing and then she's done this monthly fees things (like me) then she doesn't have a leg to stand on unless she got you to sign to agree to the other figures?

Honestly though, it's disgusting her attitude, I'm honestly shocked at how some childminders treat their customers!! And even if it takes a while to sort out the payments so far, she most definitely should be correcting the figure NOW and not in Sept!!!

The contract is based on a daily rate for one and an hourly rate for the other child. what the CM has then done is take the figures and pro rata it over the year so the fee is the same each week during term time and school holidays, i think alot of CMs do this, which is fine with me, otherwise some weeks would be alot less than others depending on school hols etc its when she has pro rata-ed the figures the mistake has been made, what i find completely un ethical is even now when she has admitted the figure is more than it should be she is not willing to reduce it and is telling me it stands!

Kitkat - Not sure how the law stands on overpayments in this case. I know in my previous life (!) when I worked in payroll, if we overpaid someone and didn't tell them within a certain time (and they had spent the money), then we could not reclaim the money.

However ... you are not her employer and it sounds as though she may have stated one rate on her contract and charged a different rate. I think you should probably be able to get your money back and I think you should have it NOW (of course if she works with you, you may want to agree something more friendly). If not, then (legal issues aside) maybe think about the small claims court?

As looney said - I completely missed charging a family for a whole week once ... didn't notice it til my year end accounts and never asked them for the money.

Oh ... and should have said ... do your own calculations and reduce your payment now (if it's a standing order).

i would hate if i made a mistake as i work on a very tight budget and if i had been depending on a set amount and it had to go down plus try and pay money back i would be devasted and really struggle. i would however try and make up the hours or see if deducting the fees spread over next year would work as long as the payments didnt go down to dramatic.