My sister to look after my son

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I am returning to work ft in jan when DS will be 15 months. My sister has made the decision to look after him. There is also a possibility of her looking after my sil's dd, who is the same age.

Please could you tell me what is the best option for her - registering as a cm, or a nanny? Does she need to do either of these seen as we are family? If as a CM - does she need experience/knowledge etc?

I would like to take advantage of childcare vouchers too - she would obv have to be registered for this. Would the cost and effort of her registering outweigh the benefits of the childcare vouchers?

Your son is her nephew, so that is considered to be a Relative - so no registration is required for your sister to care for him either at her home, or your home. It also means you can't use childcare vouchers.

Where would your sister be caring for your son - at her home, or at your home?

Not sure what the relationship between your sister and your sister in law's dd is... anyone know?

Childcare Act 2006, 18(8)c defines Relative in terms of childcare legislation.

As far as I know family members do not beed to be registered as a cm. If she does paper work etc will be needed.

It great that you can have your sister to look after you little gem.

The cm process can be a timely and expensive process.

Would the cost and effort of her registering outweigh the benefits of the childcare vouchers?

To her there is no benefit in childcare vouchers. The vouchers benefit you, not her. The registration red tape, costs, training, doing EYFS, having inspection visits, yet alone the time (it can take 3+ months to register as a childminder) are not worth it in my view - unless she plans to care for children who are not related to her.

Ahh, ok. That makes sense. So she could look after my boy without registering as anything.

If she wishes to look after SILs dd (DHs step-sister daughter, so I don't think any relation to my dsis), she would have to register. Unless she looked after them in SIL's home? Still haven't ironed that bit out at all.

If she did register we would benefit financially from vouchhers but she will be disadvantaged by the red tape and costs to the point of it perhaps not being worthwhile for her.

I think that I understand, so will have a good old chat with her about it. Thanks a lot!

Ahh, ok. That makes sense. So she could look after my boy without registering as anything.

If she wishes to look after SILs dd (DHs step-sister daughter, so I don't think any relation to my dsis), she would have to register. Unless she looked after them in SIL's home? Still haven't ironed that bit out at all.

If she did register we would benefit financially from vouchhers but she will be disadvantaged by the red tape and costs to the point of it perhaps not being worthwhile for her.

I think that I understand, so will have a good old chat with her about it. Thanks a lot!

If she wants to look after SIL's DD (no relation) in her own home then she would have to register with Ofsted as she would be a childminder, if she looks after SIL's DD in SIL's house then she wouldn't need to register as she'd be classified as a nanny.

Nannies can also accept childcare vouchers if they are registered and registering is much easier as a nanny than as a childminder. I'm not sure what the rules are regarding nannying for a member of your family and using vouchers, but it would probably be worth her registering so that SIL could use the childcare vouchers.

Also bear in mind that family or not, if you're paying her (I assume you are as you mention childcare vouchers) you will need to do it legally. If she is a childminder she will be self-employed and sort out her own tax/NI, but if she is a nanny she is an employee and you need to register as an employer and make sure her tax/NI is paid. You can use a company like Nannytax to sort all that out for you if you don't want to do it yourself.