Coronavirus- can nanny still work?

[ChloeR81]

Hi, hope I’m not duplicating a thread but I couldn’t find one.

I have a lovely nanny who comes 2 days a week. Where do we stand regarding isolation etc? Can she refuse to come to work when we’re all well? At what point would she be able to not come to work, e.g. what level of official lockdown etc.

Want to be totally fair to her and follow the rules, but equally if I don’t have childcare I can’t work and earn money to pay her. Thanks, it’s so difficult to navigate

Patchworkpatty, your advice is misleading, we are still waiting for clarification because it currently only applies to businesses. Domestic employers are not businesses, your daughter works for a business. I hope the rules do apply to domestic employers but we must get the clarification

Bonkers1234-spot on

From Nannypaye.co.uk (biggest Nanny payroll scheme in the UK

Furlough and Pay

If the employee only started in February 2020, use a pro-rata for their earnings so far to claim.”
How much should I pay my employee under furlough?
You cannot reduce your employees wage below the lower of 80% of their salary of £2500 per month. You can pay a full salary but you will incur the cost of the difference between your claim amount and the full salary cost.
How long can I furlough my Nanny for?
There is a minimum period of three weeks to be able to make a claim for costs and the scheme is currently due to end on 31st May 2020. When the scheme ends the employer will need to make a decision dependent on your circumstance as to whether your Nanny can return to duties or if it may be necessary to consider termination of employment (redundancy). As always please seek specific advice around this matter from our legal team.

Also from Nanny Paye:
Have the Government confirmed if an employer of a Nanny is eligible to claim?

Sadly in our view we still do not have a firm confirmation of your eligibility to the scheme. Whilst we feel the spirit of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme should make you eligible this has yet to be confirmed.

And....
Why would you not use this scheme?

Our concern is that our clients make an employment decision to furlough an employee keeping them on a substantial wage rate and then be found to not be eligible for the 80% cost refund. Should you have chosen an alternative route such as redundancy or layoff (both of which I hasten to add are not desirable) your costs would have been substantially reduced.

The wording from 'business' to 'all employees under a PAYE scheme' changed on 26/3

We have furloughed both our nanny and housekeeper. Very easy.

I absolutely agree. I would not want to put either nanny or housekeeper at risk. They both need to take public transport to get here and one has a vulnerable family member at home.

Completely irresponsible to have people coming into your house who aren't absolutely necessary. ie nurses caring for seriously ill individuals living alone.

@Kittensupmycurtains that's correct but even so, here's what nanny PAYE said in response to that:

Have the Government confirmed if an employer of a Nanny is eligible to claim?

Sadly in our view we still do not have a firm confirmation of your eligibility to the scheme. Whilst we feel the spirit of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme should make you eligible this has yet to be confirmed.

HMRC have updated their wording slightly to reflect all UK employers with a PAYE scheme will be able to access support as below:

“Under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, all UK employers with a PAYE scheme will be able to access support to continue paying part of their employees’ salary for those that would otherwise have been laid off during this crisis.”

However, they have still kept the eligibility criteria as ‘all UK Businesses’. We have commented in our previous updates that the employer of a Nanny is not normally recognised as a business.

This has been further reinforced with a list of organisations with employees that can apply. This is not an exhaustive list but does not specifically mention employers of domestic workers which we would have hoped to see.

Well said Kittens.. you sound like a wonderfully responsible employer. !

.. and the have correctly interpreted the 'we are all in it together' mantra. Yes I am sure your lack of housekeeper and nanny has made your life MUCH harder, but you have correctly understood that your hardship doesn't trump your staffs health . !

Bonkers1234 I am not familiar with Nannypaye.. I simply spoke to our accountant who contacted HMRC, they confirmed that initially there was confusion because the announcement referred to 'businesses' but due to hundreds of enquiries along the same lines .. it was changed on 26/3 to 'all those employees on a PAYE system...

I would be speaking to your accountant or contacting HMRC as soon as possible not relying on some website that may or may not be regularly updated. My greatest concern was for my employees health and safety . On the basis the government wants ;
Social distancing
No unnecessary journeys
Staying at home and not visiting or have people visit.
Going out for essential work.

I couldn't in all conscience claim any of those criteria.

Yes it's a nightmare. I can't work from home very easily and can only do 2 days at home realistically. . My employer is equally irresponsible and expects me as a non key worker to commute to The City 3 days a week and sit in an office. So I have had to take a pay cut also. DH is able to WFH. We are shuffling childcare between us as well as trying to keep on top of looking after a house and grounds that previously required a housekeeper 5 days a week and a gardener for 3. (He is also on furlough).

We ARE all in this together and everyone is having a tough time. It doesn't mean putting people at risk though when you don't have to.

@Kittensupmycurtains we agree - my nanny has not been in for weeks now and has been paid in full so far. I and DH struggling to work FT with kids and we are both key workers.

I do not want to promise furlough though only to be told in a few months it does not apply. Otherwise, to have to pay income tax myself on the grant (if I received it) from HMRC which again few people are aware of. Employers do need the facts in order to make a financial decision.

That is all aside from the health decisions to work/not to work which (in my case and yours) have already been dealt with.

"Going out for essential work."

This is not what the Regulations say. There is nothing in them about "essential work".

Bonkers1234 Yes agreed. The health aspect is far far greater than money or our inconvenience. I wasn't aware that people were questioning if nannies should be included. The guidance both the Gov.UK and ACAS websites is quite clear. The 'Coronavirus job retention scheme' applies to ALL employees paid via a PAYE scheme regardless of ;
Full time
Part time
Agency worker
Zero hours contract.

I am just wondering if those not wanting to put their Nanny/domestic staff on furlough might not (ahem) qualify ?

As in - either pulling the old stunt of only paying partially 'through the books' therefore avoiding tax and /or NI /workplace pension etc etc .. or paying in cash.. surely this is something the lovely MN posters would never consider... but I am a forensic accountant.. and I may just be being a little cynical !

If the nanny was working for one family then that on the face of it would seem ok. If they were working for multiple families then I think that would pose a problem as the incubation period is 14 days so the nanny could be moving the virus from one family to another.

Wow, this moved fast.

So many inaccuracies and misquotes... I really don’t know where to begin! (So I won’t bother getting personal).

Crux of the matter as I see it is that nannies are currently NOT prevented from working and it’s STILL not clear that nanny employers can claim the 80% rebate. (Despite how you’ve read the guidance from a nanny group, what Martin Lewis said, or that it should be, so it must be).

There is nothing about ‘essential’ work in government guidelines... it in fact states people should continue to work, the 2m distance is only ‘where possible’.
Plenty of people are still being asked to work... why is nannying any different? I’d say the risk is far smaller than many other jobs!

This thread was initially quite factual and useful, but is now very misleading.

I am with you pidgy

Eurochick Ok I accept that the rules do not say essential work.. they say ;
Work from home where possible.

However the entire point of this lockdown is to stop the spread and people having to go to work in non essential businesses because the employer is too money driven to put the health and well being of its workers first .. is not an excuse for me to treat my employees with an equal lack of care for their health and well-being.

I can't actually believe the people are actually questioning this.. If you have domestic staff who come in and out of your home - why on earth would you WANT them in your house ? Do you know where they have put their hands in the last day ? Do you know who they have met ? Where they have been after they left your house? It's unbelievable that anyone would choose to keep doing this. There are choices that you can make. Yes you might earn less, or have much reduced income for a while but there are schemes in place to mitigate this to make it easier to do the right thing.

3 month mortgage holiday.
ClIm from the self employed fund announced last week.
If you are employed through your own company , furlough yourself.
Live off savings for a while whilst taking a mortgage holiday.

Do you all (who want to keep making your nanny come to work) really value your money making abilities /house/possessions/things above your families health. ? .. and your employees health. ?

How would you manage if your nanny got ill ?

Agreed Pidgey.

I'm a lawyer. I've actually read the legislation and the accompanying official guidance. The misinformation and accuracies on this thread and elsewhere are frustrating.

It’s such a small risk to anyone well, no underpaying health conditions s and below 40.
I have a higher chance of dying of cancer or getting hit by a car. As long as the two households are not mixing/on public transport etc.

But you right, we should self isolate in case we get hit by a car

The point of the lockdown isn't to stop the spread. It's to slow it, so the nhs can cope. Without a vaccine or cure there is no way out of this except for most of the population being exposed to this virus, while the most vulnerable are shielded. Most of us will get it at some point, hopefully mildly. Just not all at once.

it in fact states people should continue to work, the 2m distance is only ‘where possible’.
Plenty of people are still being asked to work... why is nannying any different? I’d say the risk is far smaller than many other jobs!

Why is nannying any different ?

1. Because Nanny comes in and out of my HOME. !
2. Because it is our duty as human beings to do e wry thing in our power to stop this spread .
3. To keep 2 metres distant 'where possible' refers to people doing essential work ! Of course you can't keep 2m distant as a nurse/doctor/carer and they are ALL provided with PPE . Are you providing gloves, mask and apron for your Nanny. ?
4. Do you really believe that despite many construction sites closing down because of the inability to either keep 2m apart .. you as an employer can't also see that you should be making that decision too ? Construction sites haven't been 'told' to shut down. Many have made the correct moral judgment to do so.

My staff are furloughed . Not on advice of any 'website' but through our accounts speaking to both HMRC and ACAS.
The advice and confirmation is out there if people want to bother to ask.

It's obvious that some of you do not think your staff deserve this duty of care and will try and justify having someone risk their health and possibly life to look after your children. When you should be doing it.

I am leaving this thread now

Agreed @eurochick and @Pidgythe2nd.

The agitated moral frothing that this has attracted from some posters is bizarre.

Our nanny is currently at home on full pay but I think I have come down with COVID 19 and I'm almost certain my DS has already had it. Once we have done our full 14 day isolation I will be asking her to come back. No risk of her catching it and no risk of her infecting us. She drives 2 mins to us and lives alone. I can't see that is increasing anyone's risk.

Frankly my DH and I are on our knees juggling full time jobs and childcare. If I start needing to take unpaid leave we can't afford to pay her. So she comes back or we have to make difficult decisions.

People on here keep saying that nannies will be furloughed on 80% salary. This is only up to a cap of £2500, gross and not net (though NI and minimum pension is on top). For many full time nannies this will be below their current earnings - and for many parents, who will not be able to work themselves if the nanny is not working, it will be hard to keep paying all the extra given that this is likely to be an extended situation, even the furlough amount is tricky when it has to be paid upfront with fingers crossed that the govt will repay it later.

We've continued to pay our cleaner though she is not coming, and asked our nanny to stay home for the initial 3 week lockdown while we pay her 100%, but realistically with 4dcs it's utterly impossible for me to keep working if she chooses not to return afterwards, so all we can do then will be to pay her the 80% furlough rate through to May, while I'm not being paid at all, and hope that the govt repays it and that I still have a job to go back to so I can re-employ her afterwards - far from guaranteed, as our industry is badly hit and they'll be looking to made redundancies asap, and those who were home will be first to go. With a deep recession coming, that will be two jobs gone.

It's not as straightforward as some of the #stayathome crew on here like to make out.

Should add to the above... Of course health comes first, and if your nanny needs to take public transport, has their own family etc, those are all also factors to consider - and ultimately if an employee isn't happy to come in, as it is hard to minimise risk, then we should furlough where possible. It's just also important to consider that a furlough isn't a simple pause that can easily be fixed in a few months.

Some of the advice to employers on here is to:

1. Ignore gov advice.
2. Furlough your nanny before you 100% know that you can.

There are also implications that employers couldn’t care less about their employees. Awful judgement to make when you have zero insight into their beliefs, their relationship with their employees and their financial situations AND zero insight into the employee themselves.

This was an informative and pleasant thread with interesting differing view points on both sides but now it’s become about employer bashing.

Saw this online today:

'The mortality rate is only 3%, if you were given a jar of 100 jellybeans and told that 3 were poison and would kill you, you wouldn't eat ANY of them'.

Sorry, but when I'm seeing that people my age and younger with no underlying health conditions are dying from this, I'm not willing to risk contracting it.