Nanny/Housekeeper

[PancakesAndMapleSyrup]

Hiya, could anyone please advise the best way (internet sites such as childcare.co.uk) of getting the above, and not going through an agency? As we cant afford to do the agency fees. And alsowhether if the nanny is touse her own car does she need business insurance? We are new to this so any advice welcome. I had an accident in 2013 which has left me physically unable to do much so this is why we are looking. Thanks

You can advertise on childcare.co.uk or as a private advertiser on nannyjob.com or try your local gumtree but on there be warned you may get a lot of not suitable people applying no matter how detailed your advert is.

Also be clear on what you need them to do, mainly childcare or mainly housekeeping as finding someone who is great at both can be hard. Yes they will need business insurance on their car if you want them to use it for during working hours to run errands /take the children places and then you pay them mileage allowance.

A nanny who uses their own car needs to have suitable insurance.

The policy will likely say something like:

Use for Social Domestic and Pleasure purposes including Commuting and by the Policyholder Only in Person for his/her own or employers business.

The nanny should have informed their insurer of their occupation.

If the nanny is using their own carseats, some insurers will provide additional insurance cover for those. Such cover is not necessary but may be useful if the carseats are expensive.

You can advertise in various places. Do not forget about non-online places such as a local convenience store, as if you want someone live-out then they will probably live quite close to you. Personally I travel 8 miles to work.

NannyJob.co.uk, Childcare.co.uk are places I would personally look at. I like to see salary listed on the job ad, so I know if it is paying sufficient for what I need to earn.

Agree salary as Gross.

Thank you for your responses, apparently the going rate locally is £8 but we are happy to pay £10, plus the ni etc. The children are mostly at school so housekeeping within those hours really. Its a rather daunting process, the nanny will not be on our payroll but the insurance co will be funding and have said this is the amount they will pay per hour at most. Its up to us how many hours we choose to have. They have asked us to look and interview candidates we are haappywith. What sort of housekeeping can i ask them to do i.e can they be the same as a cleaner inthose times? As insurance co have said nanny house keeper but then no cleaner. What should i expect realistically?

Also if they do not hold business insurance or that like nanny nick atated above who pays for this?

Most insurance companies will include the business insurance in the normal cost, if there is an increase then up to you to discuss with the nanny who pays, if you need them to use their car as you have no car to let them use the. I would say you pay the difference, if they are choosing to use theirs instead of yours then they pay.

So are the insurance company going to be providing the nanny with payslips etc? Or giving you the money to pay them in which case you are the employer and as such need to register with hrmc and issue them with payslip etc. there are companies which can do all the paperwork for you for a yearly fee.

A nanny housekeeper will do light cleaning/changing beds/laundry/run errands etc but you will prob be hard pushed to find one that will do heavy cleaning like a cleaner would ie clean bathrooms fully/clean the oven/kitchen deeply etc. would they pay for a before/after school nanny and a cleaner? so then you would have the deep cleaning and childcare covered.

Our local council runs something called the Family Information Sercice, think all councils have something similar... The FIS has a list of childminders, it wouldn't surprise me if nannys and nanny/housekeepers were listed too.

Just a thought, and not meaning to be nosey, are you entitled to any help under the direct payments scheme? They may also have a list of people who would suit your needs.
Hope your search goes well

How would they not be on your payroll?

The insurance company may not be aware of how employment law will affect things - I hope they would be aware but it does not sound right that the nanny/housekeeper would be working for them, not you.

£10 an hour is possibly reasonable depending on location. People may want more though in some areas. Is the rate of £8 you have established the Net or Gross rate?

What exactly will the insurance company cover? What if it costs more, are you able to pay someone more than the insurance company will cover?
One issue is that you may be looking at Net salaries, whereas the insurance company may be looking at Total Cost (such as Gross salary plus employers NI plus payroll admin, plus mileage payments, plus activity budget), which is going to be different.

A housekeeper would do cleaning, thus maybe why they are saying you cannot have a separate cleaner.

When children are at school, housekeeper can do more in terms of cleaning than would be possible when children are on school holidays.

The nanny/housekeeper should pay all relevant insurances that cover them, so things like motor insurance and public liability insurance.

Duties I would expect of a nanny/housekeeper:

Children's laundry, to include wash, dry, fold, put away.
Adult's laundry, in include wash, dry, fold, put away.
Bedding laundry, changed as per you usual schedule.
Vacuum all carpeted areas of the home - at least once a week.
Wash solid tile floor areas - at least once a week.
Load/unload dishwasher as and when required.
General tidying and dusting.
Cooking for the children.
Taking children to/from school and to/from after-school activities.
Taking children on outings during school holidays, such as to museums.
Doing some shopping, picking up packages from postoffice.

Optional:
Ironing
Cooking for adults
Assisting with Spring Clean (so things that are done perhaps once a year such as a tidy of the attic, cleaning hard to reach windows).

A lot will depend on the individual though, as some will expect to be more nanny than housekeeper and thus not so keen on the more deeply involved cleaning tasks.

Will it be for a limited period of time if an insurance company is covering the cost? So would you be offering a fixed term contract?
If so then it may not be that appealing to people, though it might suit someone. Try to think to whom it may appeal and how you would find them. The working hours and days may fit with someone who had their own child at the same school as your children attend as an example. Though would you want them bringing their own child to work with them in the before school and after school time?

www.mranchovy.com/calc/ is useful for seeing what the likely cost of employing someone will be. It will do 2014/15 tax year currently, tax changes in April so hopefully it will be updated to reflect those changes soon.

The money side of things I feel is important for you to get right, as having insurers paying for something will mean you may need to justify expenses to them and they may not pay out for everything. Last thing you want to do is to offer someone a job then find that you won't get enough money from the insurer to pay them.

If you had someone 40 hours a week, £10 gross per hour, your cost as the employer would be

Gross: 20,857 a year
Employers NI: 1780 (this figure may change for 2015/16 tax year)
Payroll Admin: 150 (prices vary)
Mileage: unknown (can you estimate the miles your nanny is likely to drive whilst working for you. Personally I do around 3000 work miles a year).
Activity budget: ?
Food/drink for nanny: ? (it would be usual that the nanny eats with your children and that you provide food/drink whilst nanny is on duty).

So you are looking at over £23,000.

Maybe the gross salary needs to be lower if the insurer is only going to pay £10 an hour, as your cost of having a nanny/housekeeper is more than just the salary paid to the nanny/housekeeper.

You don't say where you are but if in London the going rate is £10 per hour net so if you can only iffer that gross you may struggle. Childcare.co.uk is excellent.

It sounds like your needs are a bit different to a traditional nanny or nanny/housekeeper, but I don't think that means you won't find someone. You're employing a person, and so long as you think carefully about your requirements and make sure you both understand them up front, I don't think you need to fit so very rigidly into one job description.

How old are your children? You say they're at school so they aren't really tiny - which means that you may not need a very experienced nanny (who understandably would want to stay within her valuable specialty). Perhaps someone who mainly does cleaning, but who is good with children would be a good fit if the children are a bit older? Someone might well see this as a great opportunity, giving them a bridge into childcare.

Whereabouts are you?

Gosh lots of things to answer! Agrh ill try my best. The insurance co have said £10 net, they will go onto a care management teams payroll so will cover wage slips etc. The younges is 4 and eldest 7 so youngest does some full days and some half days at nursery but sleeps in the afternoon then she is on half days. They have said inititally for 4 months but depending on how my recovery is this could eithther go on long term or short term but more than 4 months so its not a question i can really answer. We live in a small house so its general upkeep mostly and mostly cleaning in between hours. Unfortunatley its unlikely to be a parent from school as they all mostly have nannies them selves!
in regards to the direct payment scheme no idea what that is but im off to google.
We are east cambridgeshiRe/suffolk boarders.

£10 net would be a excellent wage in this area (I live in Newmarket, work in Cambridge) but obviously it's finding someone who would be interested in your job. I would recommend childcare.co.uk if you can't afford the agency fees especially as lots of people in this area use it for their Jobs.

I needed quite specific thing from my nanny (part time, live out, driving licence, own car) and you can set the filters on childcare.co.uk for all those things, and I'm sure there is a nanny/housekeeper one too, and you set it to within a certain number of miles of your postcode. I then trawled through a load of profiles that fit those boxes, I probably emailed 20 of whom 5-10 replied, interviewed 3 and picked 1, but would have been happy to have the other two. I only paid for one month's membership so £20 total. Very easy process and much cheaper than an agency. You can only send a certain number of messages per day through the site(which is great, as it cuts down on spam) but if you need more, ring or email them, they will look at what you've sent and if you're not spamming people they'll increase your limit for free.