Looking for advice on admin side of employing someone for after schol care

[Methren]

Clueless about this so any advice appreciated.

I am thinking of employing someone (most likely a uni student) to look after my primary-aged DCs after school - this would be for 2 hours once a week on a regular basis, plus very occasional extra afternoons, and term time only.

If it matters, childcare would not be in my home or this person's - they would take DCs to an afterschool activity and supervise them there until I collect them after work.

My questions are:

• For this number of hours per week do I need to do tax/NI or can I just pay cash in hand?
• Is it advisable to draw up a contract? If so what are the key things to include in it?

Thanks in advance!

If they have other income then yes it should be declared and income tax may need to be deducted at 20%.
If they have no other income then you would not need to register as an employer.

First step is to get them to complete a p46/new starter checklist.

Do you need them to commit to doing the hours every week? If so then a contract is useful setting out your agreement, notice period to cancel the agreement, notice needed to take holiday.

No employers NI would be due or employee NI as those are calculated per job and you are unlikely to pay high enough for it to apply.

Thanks for your response, nannynick. I've looked up new starter checklist and some other pages on the HMRC website and that was very helpful.

So if I have this right, if I found someone with no other job, I wouldn't need to register as an employer unless I paid them more then the weekly threshold, I would pay them a certain rate (let's say £10 an hour), and they would not pay income tax out of that. All I would need to do is keep a record of what and when I paid them.

But if I employed someone with another job, I would need to register as an employer, issue pay slips, and I would need to pay a higher gross hourly rate in order for them to receive a net rate of £10 an hour.

Seems like such a palaver just for 2 hours' childcare a week. How do people manage this?