Employment status

[Traintrackmad]

I've also posted this query in the elderly parents topic. We are currently recruiting for a carer/personal assistant for my elderly grandparents. The person we have found has requested to be self employed.
I am a nanny doing very similar tasks to those we will expect from the carer, ie, keeping charge fed, clean, entertained, taking them to clubs, doing the washing. Obviously I do them for children, the carer would do the tasks for elderly employer.
I have always been told nannies can not be self employed as the terms of employment don't fit with HMRCs definition of self employment. Today my dm has spoken to Hmrc on the phone and they have said the carer can be self employed. Does anyone know why this would be the case when nannies have to be employed?

Got this off the goverment website

Self-employment
Nannies and other people working in your home can be self-employed if they work for more than one person or family.

They’ll have to:

keep their own records
pay their own National Insurance
make a self-assessment tax return each year and pay any income tax
Self-employed people have different employment rights from employees.

www.gov.uk/au-pairs-employment-law/nannies

I see what you mean but I think the difference is that nannies would normally need to have regular times of work (so parents can work) but an older persons carer has lots of flexibility when they turn up to the house.

hi im a childminder/homecarer which means i can childmind from my home or nanny from someone elses house and im self employed

The hmrc site itself is ridiculous since they updated it, I wouldn't trust it, you ideally need to speak to people in your local tax office about it. I've spoken to so many people at my local office about it and they refuse to give a straight answer about it as they don't want to have you say that they advised you should your employer ever get caught. . Their "advice" was that unless you are working sporadic hours for numerous families, you were "likely" employed, and if you worked set hours for any family, even just a few hours a week, they considered you to be employed by that family. I'm both employed and self employed for that reason.

The home childcarer title is misleading too. I am one with my local council, I can only provide care in the child's home as you have to be registered as a childminder with ofsted to care for children at your home. My council frequently advertises full time positions as self employed "home childcater" positions. Drives me mad. It's why I spent ages on the phone to the tax office a few months ago trying to get a clear response!