Au pair pocket money- not sure if DH suggestion will work-Thoughts?

[sagalsmith]

We have decided on an au pair and found a seemingly nice swedish one (skype interview) who will be here next week. I've been searching online for ideas on contracts etc- read a lot! Good and bad and now wondering if we're offering her the right thing!!!
Anyway- in a nutshell this is what we offered and need:
-30hr/week, usual stuff, most weekends off as we have another arrangement for Saturdays and Sundays are family days.
-we both will be working full time (I'm just starting a new business so a bit variable and not sure what to expect)
-both school going kids so free during the day and she'll be doing an online course from home- not English.

After DH spoke to some colleagues about what they did with holiday arrangements, what quite a few seemed to do is to pay a certain rate which covers all eventualities so that there's no 'counting hours' and no one feels taken advantage of. So he thought that instead of offering £100/week (what we're happy to pay), we'd offer £120/week but it means that she should cover holidays and child sick days (very infrequent) etc. She's happy with this arrangement. I do worry a little in case she leaves early and we have just paid her all this extra money. On the other hand, if it works well, we could potentially have a happy situation.

Any thoughts? We're in London.

Nah, I would pay her a basic pay with additional top up for extra hours per day on holidays. That way, she has an incentive to cover those days and you only pay for what you use.

I pay my aupair £20 extra per day for every full day she covers. She also gets unexpected days off (e.g. if I am at home) which we do not claw back any pocket money for, not that we ever intended to. It gives the aupairs little perks and breaks here and there, which is quite nice for them.

BTW £120 per week takes you over the tax threshold and you will have to pay tax and NI for her.

We give our aps 5 weeks holidays a year.. As that's what I get! These are paid. I just roll out leave pro rata so a whole year is 5 weeks. Working out when they want to go away in advance so I can book leave, adjust shifts etc.
really ... Sick leave? I guess ap in Australia is much less formal. Simple my ap is sick I don't want her to be looking after the kids! She can happily stay in bed and sleep it off. I will take sick or family leave to cover her! I have not had an ap take advantage if this yet. They are reliable and want to be helpful! If they priced to be ill non stop obviously they would be told to head home.. I am confused otherwise how you regulate sick time... Surely sick is sick. They live in your home, so its hard to "pull a sickie"

I'm assuming you're talking about the AP working an extra few hours here and there to cover a child off school or the occasional holiday day? At £100/week you don't have much wriggle room for overtime payments and I think once a payment over the threshold has been made this triggers RTI whether you have to made deductions that week/month or not.

In general APs are more motivated to help out if they see the resulting increase rather than them losing their free hours for 'nothing'. The averaging out usually works better with nannies who live out and want the steady income.

Agree with bluesshoos - she would have no incentive to cover extra days. I pay 15 extra per every full day she covers - I only have 1 DS and he is 12, so not much work for an au pair to be with him, just to be at home.
I also give her extra days off whenever I can and never deduct of course. I agreed with her time from 3:30 to 8 Mon to Fri, but very often I come home at 7, sometimes at 6:30 and it is a nice surprise for her - she usually runs to gym then.
Small perks matter as bluesshoos says

'what quite a few seemed to do is to pay a certain rate which covers all eventualities so that there's no 'counting hours' and no one feels taken advantage of'

I don't understand that bit. Wouldn't that arrangement be more likely to leave her feeling taken advantage of (if they have an unusually high number of days of sick/snow days etc)? If you pay for what you use, i.e. count hours, she won't be taken advantage of will she? So £100 for the standard 30 hour week, £20 per day extra for any full day. That's clear and shouldn't lead to anyone feeling they're overpaying/being underpaid.

I pay £80 + use of travelcard during evening and weekends and £10 phone top up per month. For 25 hours per week.

I would pay the basic and top up if longer days/weeks are required.

Forgot to say i have 1 child only :-)

Thank you. That's great help. I did bring up the fact that over £109 is liable for tax and NI. Advice he received was from people with nannies so that probably works in that instance.
I've already told her I'm paying £120/week so will have to figure that one out but thank you all so much for your opinion. I have a clearer idea who to proceed.