Help with after school nanny/full time holiday contract and holiday entitlement

[tiggersreturn]

I'm about to go down the route of this one again i.e. nanny for about 5 hours a day 5 days a week term time and full time school holiday. Youngest are in pre-school so I need longer after school hours and would be happy to keep this for years as it gives me reasonable sick cover.

The last time I did this it all went horribly wrong at the end because I hadn't managed to work out how to do the holiday on hours and ended up overpaying enormously as we ended the contract before the summer holidays.

So this time I know I have to work out the annualised hours and then apply the holiday allowance to that including bank holidays.

My question is are there any limitations on what days I call termtime and which school holidays? e.g. if I know for sure that I'll be booking off some of the holiday time because it's a religious festival can I call that day a 5 hour day rather than a 9 hour one?

Also any other tips on how to make this arrangement work?

I think you agree in the contract how many weeks are 5 hrs x 5 days and how many are 9 hrs x 5 days. You also agree when holiday can be taken - because presumably if nanny is required to take holiday when you do in the school holidays then it is a bit unreasonable for her to have to take 45 hours and they might prefer to take it during term time when it would only require 25 hours but would be a pain for you if you have to take a week off work to cover.

Would you be prepared to give a 9 hour day off but only count it as being the shorter day in hours? That way you would provide more holiday than statutory, but on leaving you could pay for remaining hours not taken. Does that make sense?

You need to find something that meets minimum requirement but also which you both understand.

I've always had the 50/50 thing in my contracts (I pick half they pick half). In this case I'd be dictating some of the days of particular weeks would be at half day rate instead of full. I can't find anything that would suggest it will be a problem but I'll check it out with ACAS on Monday. Thanks

If you agree up front that certain weeks are 25 hour weeks and other weeks are 45 hour weeks, then would that help?

As religious festivals are usually fixed dates, could you agree those in advance and if necessary insist they are taken as annual leave at a set number of hours?