Clueless regarding employing a nanny

[LittleBearPad]

Help!

I am currently on mat leave with my six month old and will return to part time work in January. We also have a three year old who will start nursery three mornings a week this summer.

How do I go about employing a nanny to look after the baby (and three year old in the afternoons). I feel very clueless.

Are there things to watch out for with agencies? Is an agency best?

When do I need to start organising all this?

We would need someone 11/12 hours a day for three days a week (not concurrent ie Monday, Wednesday, Thursday).

We're based in southwest London so I've been working on the assumption of £12 gross an hour. Is this reasonable? Or do I need to gross up further for pension contributions?

Any advice very gratefully received.

£12 doesn't sound enough when you take in to account nanny tax. It might be worth approaching an agency to at least glean a bit more on financials.

I would suggest contacting a nanny tax, payefor nannies, etc. Listing out all your questions, and going from there.
I found our nanny on childcare.co.uk, and I was really worried before hand about logistics / interviewing / etc, but it all worked out. I started looking 3 months before we need a nanny, which was too far in advance for some nannies but for the one we clicked with it worked out perfectly as there was only 1 week between end of her old employment and ours. Good luck!

I'm in the north west but have similar situation to you. A part time nanny, 3 days per week , 11 hours per day to look after two small DCs (one at preschool part time). We pay ?10 per hour gross but our nanny will be leaving us before the new pension regulations come in to force so I'm not sure how that affects pay.

Personally, I'd recommend an agency if you don't have a personal recommendation. Ours was VERY picky about vetting their nannies and all the ones they put forward for us to consider were very professional, well qualified and experienced. IMO it was worth the agency fee as our nanny is great! You have to trust this person in your home with your children 100% (which I found wierd at first) so I think the extra level of vetting is worth it.

We also use a PAYE scheme for payslips and tax liabilities (I think it's called PAYE for Nannies) as I'd never have the time to calculate tax, sick pay etc. We pay about ?110 a year for that service but it's worth it.

Most nannies are on a month's notice so I would register with a few agencies over the summer and be specific on your requirements. The ones who know the nannies on their books well will know if anyone's coming free or wants a change of role.

I'd say 12 gross is on the low side for SW London though will depend exactly which bit. I pay 13 gross for 4 days a week. Also tricky with three days as it might be hard for them to make up the other so you may need to pay slightly more per hour.

Thank you. That's all very useful.

Definitely going to pay an agency to sort out all the tax etc.

Is 12 days holiday ie 4 weeks pro rata sensible (plus relevant bank holidays)?

Finally is it reasonable to assume and then agree that they can/will help with child related household chores (ie cooking child meals for freezer, washing children's clothes, tidying children's bedrooms) but nothing adult related?

mine does everything child related so laundry, sorting out grown clothes, food (inc for weekend on request), packing for hols, presents for friends' birthdays, researching classes and activities.

I have a cleaner so nanny doesn't clean the kids' room but will clean toys/pull out furniture to make sure cleaner gets into the corners/wash soft furnishings in kids' room if they get grubby.

Also does limited adult tasks but I don't generally ask a lot in this regard although my nanny would be willing to help more as is a generous sole. I do get my ocado shop delivered in nanny's hours (nanny has access to the ocado account and adds what's needed for kids/themselves so it works in their favour). Will wait in for packages if important, occasionally picks up dry cleaning if urgent, pick up bread/an emergency pizza if we've had a very tough week (eg when my granny died and I had to rush home urgently), will hang out the odd load of washing/bung in a load of towels/fold stuff off the clothes horse.

I'm in N London zone 3, all nannies seem to think in net and going rate is £10 per hour net, assuming split tax code or only job - put it into a tax calculator to get the gross. With my nanny who had another job it worked out as £12.10, the one with no other job it was about £10.50

5.6 weeks pro rata including bank holidays - I was more generous as she worked Mondays and that wouldn't have left her 4 clear weeks after BH so I said 4 weeks plus BH. You can structure it however you like as long as it isn't less generous than 5.6 weeks including BH

payefornannies are very good for the payroll stuff and much cheaper than nannytax

other chores - very reasonable - ours also irons adult clothes, but she has 3 hours with no kids as youngest is at preschool

Holidays you will need to do a minimum of 5.6 x 3 = 16.8 days. This is due to most bank holidays occurring on a Monday, a day which your nanny would not work.
Any bank holidays that do occur on a working day, such as some years Xmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Day, can be taken as annual leave from the 16.8 days that holiday year.
If hours worked each day are different, need to calculate holiday in hours not days.

Using a payroll company is certainly a good idea. NannyPAYE, PayeforNannies, NannyMatters. Have a look at their websites, give them a call and have a chat. Some will sort out the contract for you as well as doing the monthly payroll.

A nanny agency can help with finding you a suitable nanny. Avoid those who just send you cvs regardless of if they match your requirement or not. Best agencies will find nannies for whom the job is a good match and then put only those forward, so you may not get many applicants but those you do get are the best of the best.

childcare.co.uk is very good for finding nannies and the £20 per month fee is a damn sight less than an agency charges!

Hi OP

I'm SW London and have just been hiring a 4 day a week nanny for a 10 month old and 3 year old who is in nursery 3 mornings.

Due to the post being part time I have found the minimum that I could find someone for was £11 net an hour, and have actually ended up paying £12 net ( obviously it is gross in the contract). The part time nature of the post made it much harder to hire - hence the higher salary ( although three days you may get someone who can find another job te other two days - might be more difficult as they are consecutive days though).

I used childcare.co and did my own checks - used nanny agencies first time around and they were pretty useless tbh.