Hiring nanny for 12 weeks part-time - advice on terms and tax please!

[Mumof3under3]

We are about to hire a nanny for a 12 week period only, 5 hours a day (25 on total).

Does anyone have experience of a similar situation and advice on things like:

Do we need to register with HMRC for that kind of contract?

What hourly pay range is reasonable to look after 1/sometimes 2 children? Gross v Net?

What paid holidays should we offer (there are a lot of bank holidays coming up so would these be part of holiday allowance or on top)

Finally, do we have to pay sick leave and/or have other employer issues to consider?

Thanks so much for your help, all advice appreciated :)

Do we need to register with HMRC for that kind of contract?

Yes, you are an employer, they are also likely to have another job so you have to operate PAYE regardless of the pay level.
Assuming you want the person turning up 5 hours a day and not just turning up whenever they like, or supplying someone else to do the job, than it's not really a self employed job.

Some agencies will employ the nanny, operate the PAYE and subcontract the nanny to you. That could suit you. See www.nannytree.co.uk/ for an example of an agency offering that service.

What hourly pay range is reasonable to look after 1/sometimes 2 children? Gross v Net?

Number of children does not affect the salary of a nanny. Nannies are paid per family.

Location would be a factor, places like London can be a lot higher than places more rural.

Given no location provided... I'd guess you are looking at £8 to £13 gross per hour as ballpark figures.

Agree a Gross wage... you have no idea what their tax code would be. They are likely to have another job.

What paid holidays should we offer (there are a lot of bank holidays coming up so would these be part of holiday allowance or on top)

See Casual Workers

For every 10 hours worked : (12.07 ÷ 100) x 10hours = 1.21 hours

So for every 25 hours worked: 3.02 hours of holiday.

Bank holidays are included, so you could ask them to use up the holiday hours on those bank holidays.

Finally, do we have to pay sick leave and/or have other employer issues to consider?

It is normal for a nanny contract to stipulate that it is Statutory Sick Pay. So no sick leave included. See Direct.gov:SSP Entitlement to it is affected by the employees National Insurance contributions - "you must have average earnings of £97 a week before tax and National Insurance contributions are deducted. Your average weekly earnings are calculated over the eight weeks before your sickness began."
As a small employer you may be able to claim back SSP paid out, I can't quite work out how this works but details are here and this is also useful as it is about funding statutory payments.

If you hire them yourself then you will have to register with HMRC, get a contract in place, deal with holidays (in 12 weeks they will be entitled to a minimum 6.5 days holiday which can include bank holidays so with 2 at Easter and 3 in May with the wedding that works out well). You may have to deal with sick pay arrangements (the rules for Statutory Sick Pay are quite complex), and potentially every other issue an employer has to consider.

Alternatively, use an agency as Nick says - not cheap, but a lot simpler. If it was 6 weeks I'd say you'd be mad not to go for an agency, for 6 months I'd say probably go it alone: at 12 weeks it's borderline.

Thank you both so much for really thorough info - very reassuring to have your replies and know that we are going in the right direction! All v clear so will see what the nanny feels about all of the above. Thanks again - really appreciate your time in replying.

Final question in case anything 'standard' exists that I could download - do you know if any 'standard' nanny contracts exist anywhere that we could adapt??!
thanks again!

There are template contracts on www.nannyjob.co.uk
I always suggest adding lots of specifics to the Gross Misconduct section so that it's very clear what you feel would be grounds for immediate dismissal.