when does a baby sitter become a nanny?

[poocatcherchampion]

I'm going back to work for a period of 5 months before I go back onto maternity leave. I will be working up to 2.5 days a week of which maybe up to 1.5 will be out of the home and require childcare.

this will be covered by husband and family, or a friend who we will pay or a nanny who we will pay sourced through an agency.

friend is self employed and does cleaning type jobs (also has nannying experience and we have no doubts about her competence).

what we want to know is whether she can be a babysitter and declare income as part of her self employed role or whether we need to employ her. the dates and times will be flexible to suit the requirements of the job.

thanks!

Have a look here for guidance on who is self-employed and who is an employee.

That's a real borderline case. If it was me and my friend, I think I'd probably treat it as self employment - the chance of HMRC disputing this is pretty slim, and if they did there wouldn't be much money at stake anyway.

But I can't advise you to do that (even though what I post here is for information only and does not constitute professional advice), so if you are in doubt you should ask for a decision in writing from the Status Customer Service Team.

What would happen if you needed to work but your husband could not cover and friend/nanny had other plans that day? If in that situation you insisted the nanny work, then that may mean its employment rather than self employment.

Thanks, I'll read the guidance, I thought it might not be clear cut. If the friend nanny isn't available we will look for other options including in laws, me not going, using an agency nanny etc. That will happen as she also has other commitments, and we are not asking to be at the top of the pile.

If she remains self employed for her work with us, should she call herself babysitter or is there a better term?

Great help,thanks!

Well your first paragraph knocks out one keystone of employment - mutuality of obligation - which is a good start.

It doesn't really matter what she calls herself, but it might be an idea for her to get some cheap business cards made up - "Ann Smith - for all your temporary, backup and emergency childcare needs"

Oh the guidance is useless in judging marginal cases that are not tradesmen - which is fair enough as 90% of false self employment probably relates to tradesmen (or did when it was written), but not very useful to you.