3 quick quest about BABYSITTERS!

[redruby]

Hi All, we have a potential babysitter visiting us this afternoon. We are hoping to hire her over her Uni holidays to look after our ds (9 months) for a couple of hours a day, a few days a week, while I work locally in a cafe. It is a short term solution till we find a child minder. She is 19. Is travelling across west london to sit for us. She has previously sat for a 3 yr old, never a child this young. My intuition is telling me she will do OK and can be trusted (we know her through a friend) and I will only be a few moments away ... but my questions are:
a. anything I should be thinking of that I am not?

b. what is the hourly rate for babysitters these days ?
c. Do we pay her travel?
Thank you MNetters for any tips xx

I work for sitters and get the minimum wage and no travel costs. Actually tbh, some families literally pay me to the nearest 15 mins. It amazes me people will pay less per hour for childcare than for their house to be cleaned but there you go. I believe sitters charge slightly more for babysittes in London so you could look at their hourly charges on their website.

I would be asking if she has any first aid, whether she hs insurance for the car to cover her taking your child out, whether she can prepare food.

I would ask her some questions specifically related to babies with some scenarios if x happended what would you do etc.

Also will you be preparing babies meals or will she - if the latter ask her what she would prepare.

Does she have any qualifications childcare wise, even just first aid - does she have a current CRB check.

Also if she is going to be taking baby in car she needs business insurance to cover her.

I would suggest £6-£7 an hr with a min of £20 per day (you say its only a few hrs)

No wouldnt pay for travel its her choice to choose a job whether it be 10mins or 45mins from home.

Tax and Ni???? Is she self-employed or are you employing her?? As a temp job with ad-hoc hrs she can be self employed but have this in writing and signed by both of you - would be inclined to have a mini contract of sorts as well.

Assuming she is a student, then HMRC: Work in Holidays while a Student may be useful info with regard to taxation.
Also HMRC: PAYE basics is a useful read as well.

The key financial figure that may be of interest to you is £102 per week. This is the National Insurance Lower Earnings Limit for tax year 2011/12. If they are paid less than that, and you are their only income, then you won't need to operate PAYE.

With regard to salary, you need to consider how much you yourself will be paid - it could well be the case that your nanny/babysitter might want more pay than you get yourself. So you need to decide how much you can afford to pay and consider if it's worth their while working for you for that amount, especially given the travel situation.

When you say travelling across west london, how far is it, how long does it take? I would wonder about reliability and affordability of that travel. You wouldn't be paying for that travel but they would be out of the money you pay them, so if travel costs are high it may not be worth them working.

First aid knowledge would be something to look for... especially things like choking, as 9 month old's can love putting things in their mouth. When I babysat as a teenager I didn't have formal childcare training but I did have first aid training.

Thank you Mumsnetters very helpful. List of q's printed out and all reeady for her visit :)