Flexible childcare- babysitter/nanny? Advice please

[Purpledaisy3]

I'm returning to work from Mat Leave in June, my DDs will be 13, 11 and 11 months. I work 2 nights per week but these can be any night, and I just need someone to watch the LO whilst I have a bit of sleep the day after (s I will be hoe but in bed).

We've got a lovely 17yo babysitter who is about to finish her childcare course at college in the next week or so, and I'm thiking about employing her for this. However I'm not sure if this will count as au pair/nannying rather than babysitting and I want to make sure that I'm doing things right.

She'll be watching LO for a maximum 12-16 hours per week (thats if both my shifts are mid week and we also have an evening babysitting), and some weeks we won't need her at all if I'm working over the weekend. I'm not sure if rather than pay her by the hour (normally we pay her £6/hour) I should set an amount each week, or maybe just have a minimum amount so that she's still got an income even when we don't need her/she's on holiday? Also if she is counted as a nanny (still not sure what the difference technically is) I know I'm responsible for tax and insurance, but I don't think I'll be paying her enough to qualify? If she gets a second job do I need to know her income from that to work it out?

Any advice gratefully recieved

If their only job and you pay less than £112 a week then you do not need to register as an employer. If they then get another job as well they need to tell that employer that they already have other income.

Thanks for that Nannynick, would it be the new employers responsibilty to sort out the tax and insurance at that point or would it be both? Do I need to provide payslips?

As far as I know it would only be the second employers role to sort out tax/ni.

Yes you should provide payslips - a simple way to do that is to use a self duplicating booklet available from a stationary provider. Simply record down the date, amount paid, what work was done, your details.
This way you have a record of what has been paid should it ever be queried.
Also a good idea to print off a New Starter Checklist (PDF - full version of Adobe Reader needed, won't work in many browsers) and keep that as a record that they are saying it is their only job.