terms of contract for part time nanny

[yourztruly]

what benefits should i offer my self employed part time (1.5 days a week)nanny? I Mentioned to her i would be on holiday in a a month for 1 week and she seemed very annoyed..(perhaps not a good sign!) this made me think i should probably set out some kind of informal contarct with her.

what would you suggest for holiday pay, sick pay, change of hours, end of employment?

thank you soo much,

If she is self employed then she should be giving you a contract, not you give her one - as she is providing you with a service and you are the service user and have to comply with the terms she lays down.

Consider having her as your employee regardless of her doing other work for other families. That way you get to call the shots.

If you decide to make her your employee, then your contract would detail things like holiday entitlement (5.6weeks minimum), sick pay - usually just SSP, working hours, disciplinary procedures, notice periods etc.

Is she a temp or is she going to be working for you for the foreseeable future?

If the latter, then I'm afraid it is unlikely she can do this as self employed. You need to check with the tax office on this status for your particular job. It is likely you will be her employer, so should offer her a gross wage and deduct her tax and ni and also pay employers ni.

Have a read of this

As a SE nanny she has no entitlement to holiday, sick pay etc. Just so you know she'd have no entitlement to maternity leave or pay either.

You use her as and when you need her, if she works she gets paid and if she doesn't then she doesn't. Part of the rub of being SE.

She should be providing you with her terms of service. If you're providing the contract that would suggest more of an employer/employee relationship to me.

It's very, very unusual for nannies to meet the criteria for self-employment in every job they do.

o sorry i must have used self employed in thewrong way.

shes is a regular nanny/au pair who has found her own jobs and works for several different families including me 1.5 days a week

she will be annoyed as she is avaiable to work and provide her service and you are the one going on holiday and chosing not to use it so she will lose out on pay through no choice of her own if you go on holiday and dont pay her.

ViveLaFrak Sun 01-Aug-10 14:14:42
As a SE nanny she has no entitlement to holiday, sick pay etc. Just so you know she'd have no entitlement to maternity leave or pay either.

im self employed and took maternity leave and got maternity allowance paid to me which just equals the same amount as smp

So how are you inturpreting self employed?
Do you mean you will be arranging an employment contract, operating PAYE, determining how much to pay?

One benefit you may want to have written in the contract is to do with food whilst on duty. For example which meals are provided, if those are to be the same as cooked for the children.

I presume you're a CM cheryl?

In which case you can give notice that your service is unavailable for x period for ML and parents can give notice that they're going elsewhere with no consequence. As a SE person a job isn't protected. Your clients have no obligation to return to you in the way an employer has the obligation to give a nanny her job back after ML.

And yes, you get MA but as a client, not employer, the OP wouldn't have to pay, reclaim and operate PAYE for SMP. So she has no entitlement to maternity PAY which isn't the same as MA.

SE nannies and CMs are like comparing apples and oranges sometimes.

Nanny may think she's SE but I doubt she meets the criteria in your specific case. Unfortunately the consequences hurt the employer rather than the nanny if you wrongly use a SE nanny's services - the fines are considerable and you would be liable for backpayments as well.

You may have misinterpreted SE, in which case ignore most of the above but the quick test is who is currently responsible for tax/NI?

Hang on, can someone clarify? I'm just about to start using a part time nanny and my understanding was that it is completely illegal for her to be self-employed if she comes regularly and I have to have a contract with her, providing holidays, sick pay etc. Is that not right? Have just spent hours writing my contract and going through all the bumpf...would love to find out I'm wrong and she could be SE after all as would be much cheaper...

If she can be SE it would not be cheaper, as the rate charged would reflect the nature of that agreement. It would save you the Employers NI and cost of paying a payroll agency... but you may find the person wanted a higher hourly rate, which could offset that saving.

Employment status is looked at on an individual job level and an overall picture of how the person works. At least that is my understanding of it.

A nanny with many different jobs which are not regular commitments, which they can turn down the opportunity to work when asked, could well be done under self employment. However most nanny jobs are not like that... they are far more an Employer:Employee relationship in that you would dictate the hours of work, the days they work, their duties etc.

There is no definitive answer as it's all down to the individual circumstances. However general rule of thumb is that they are more often than not an employee.

HMRC: Status Manual - which alas does not specifically mention nannies but does outline the general principles used to determine employment status. It also contains some references to case law - such as Hall v Lorimer where the max length of the engagement was 10 days and the person worked for around 20 companies a year. If you talk about in nannying terms, the nanny would have to be working for say 20 families and for no longer than 10 days per arrangement... so could work for 20 familes for 2 weeks each over a 1 year period.
However case law can't be used in that way... as per Walls v Sinnett which ends with "The principle reinforced here is that each case must be looked at in the light of its own particular facts. You cannot just read across from one case to another where the facts are similar and argue that the employment status is necessarily the same in both cases."

Thus best to assume that a nanny is your employee until such a time that HMRC inform you otherwise.

SE nannies are usually those in continuous temporary employment, such as maternity nannies, or those with a large number of ad hoc clients who book time slots but the nanny has no obligation to them, if that makes sense.

If nanny is turning up every Monday, between 8 and 6, has to request holiday and you can change details of the job without renegotiating the arrangement then the likelihood is they're employed.

99% of the time it's illegal for a nanny to be SE and the exceptions will have confirmation in writing that their business model is counted as suitable by HMRC which it would be advisable to verify for each specific situation anyway.

It's impossible to say definitively without knowing every single factor but in general a nanny is an employee. Better to err on the side of caution in any case as I doubt there are penalties for employing someone when they could be SE! Willing to be corrected on that though