revised holiday law coming in soon? What is the difference for live-in nannies

[eleusis]

I need to know what the new law is concerning bank holidays. Will they be required to be paid?

I know that now you can give them the day off, pay her for it, and then you can credit it towards the 4 weeks of hols. But, I think this is ending.

i think its going up to 24 days (instead of 20 days)

as you are an employer and your nanny is an employee she will be entitiles to extra days paid holiday the same as everyone else (includng you, assuming you are a working parent!)

But, right now, she is entitled to bank holidays off, but not for them to be paid. If you pay them, then they can be counted towards the 4 weeks holiday entitlement. I think I heard that now Bank hols must be paid, and they can not count towards the 20 days. But, if that was the case, there would be 8 more days, not 4 more.

do you mean that you dont pay your nanny for bank hols?

yes bank holidays can count as holiday at the moment, i assume they can still? (no idea really but would guess that they can) personally i would NEVER work for a family where i didnt have my 4 weeks ASWELL as bank holidays as paid leave.

From october will be ensuring its 24days + bank hols. (the reality is i get 5 / 6 weeks per year + odd days here and there though)

Ah, this explains it. Form Nannytax:

Statutory Holiday Pay
All employees in the UK are entitled by law to four weeks paid leave every year. This entitlement now begins from the first day of employment but cannot be taken until it has been accrued (e.g. one day's holiday after thirteen days work). Part-time employees are entitled to the pro-rata equivalent. Employers whose nannies do not accompany them on holidays may like to agree with their nannies, when employment starts, that at least part of this entitlement is to be taken when they themselves are on holiday.

Currently the four weeks can include all bank holidays, but as of October 1st 2007 legislation is changing and all employers will be required to give at least 4 bank holidays as paid leave. As of October 1st 2008 all employers will be required to give all 8 bank holidays as paid leave.

So this year, I have to pay 4 of the bank holidays on top of hols. And next year I have to pay all 8. I think I'm getting trading in nanny for au pair next year. So, I'll manage to escape the 8.

Bugger, I wonder how much money this costs industry with parents callin in sick because they don't have enough to hols to cover the nannies hols? Not that I'm planning to do that!

It's all a bit muddled, but I'll explain it the best I can.

At the moment, everyone has the entitlement to paid holiday of four weeks per year. There is no separate entitlement to paid bank holidays so, as you say, if you pay bank holidays you can count them against the four weeks.

From October, the entitlement for a full time employee will go up to 24 days and then, a year or so later, to 28 days. However, the rules on bank holidays are not changing at all. This means that, if you give bank holidays and pay them, they can count towards the 24/28 days.

This means that, in practice, the only people that the change will affect is those who currently pay 8 bank holidays and then only give 12 extra days' holiday per year. Because the total for that is only 20, those people will have to add on 4 more days to the paid holiday.

The reason that it gets all confused and people talk about bank holidays is that, once the law is brought in, the net result for most office based employees (who tend to get paid bank holiday as standard) will be that they will be granted four weeks paid holiday per year and will be paid for the 8 bank holidays. It does not mean that you can't set it up differently if you want to.

You can type all the emoticons you want. I pay what I can afford to pay. Sometimes my holiday has to be used somewhere other than for the nanny's holiday (like when one kid is sick and the other needs to be at school -- nanny goes to school and I tend to sick child). And so yes, I count her bank hols as holiday entitlement. But, then I try to fill in where I can if she wants a day off. You may think this bad practice, but I can only offer what I can afford.

I'm sorry, but nanny tax is point blank wrong if that's what it says.

You are not, and will not, be obliged to pay bank holidays. You could, for example, give your nanny 24 days paid holiday at other times and then agree that she will work on bank holidays.

I am not sure whether you can legally compel a nanny to take unpaid leave on bank holidays though - I suppose if it was written in her contract that her hours were Monday - Friday except bank holidays... She might say that, if you're not going to pay her to be off, she would work the day.

The current law is that you must give them bank holidays off. But you do not have to make them paid.

Hmmm, I have been a complete idiot. I have always given 20 days holiday plus paid bank holidays.

What a mug - I had no idea that I didn't have to pay bank holidays.

Eleusis,

It isn't actually the law that you must give nannies bank holidays off. You can require employees to work bank holidays. It is simply a question of what their employment contract says. Take shop workers for example, their contracts will not entitle them to bank holidays.

However, I do agree that it is probably standard practice to give nannies bank holidays off and that they expect this, even if they are then unpaid. It is not as if most people hiring a nanny will need him/her to work on bank holidays...

Piggy- look at it this way, you won't need to change anything for the change in the law and you won't miss the money as you're already paying it.

I don't know if that's really going to make Piggy feel better.

No, but it was the best 'silver lining' I could come up with...

Also, as others have said, it is quite common to pay bank holiday plus 20 days at the moment. I know that there's the whole issue of cost and affordability, but some nannies simply won't take the job if they don't get 20 days plus bank holidays. Piggy's nanny may have been one of those...

Yes, that's true. Perhaps Piggy's nanny would have told her to take a hike.

Perhaps I can let her know just how lucky she is to be employed by an idiot!

The really depressing thing is that I'm absolutely sure she would have taken the job without the paid bank holidays. Gah...!

You could tell she has to work the next bank holiday, since you are paying her. And then you could take the day off without CDs.

I'm just kidding.... well... sort of.

Wonder if there's any chance I could get her to work on New Year's Day....

Do you want her to? Hangover and all.

oooo the thought of someone looking after the kids on New Years' Day... Piggy, if it is any consolation I do the same and I knew I didn't have to give them the time off, paid. so that makes me double-idiot

It all seemed the right thing to do with the nanny at the time, but have now realised that I will be stuffed if I cannot exactly synchronise my hols with the nanny's hols. seems like instead of having nanny sheepishly asking for days off the roles will be reversed and I'll have to sheepishly ask when nanny plans to go skiing and so on so I that can arrange fun day at home with the kids.

I think I was just tempted by the idea of a lie in past 6am on one day of the year!

Don't be silly Piggy. You are a slave to your children. That's what being a parent is all about.

You are so right. Sigh.

Are live-in staff not exempt from this? Had thought that most employment rights went out the window when someone liveed-in at their place of work... could be wrong though, or it could apply to only some parts of employment legislation... any one know for sure?

please can someone make bullet points with the new changes; I am finding it hard to follow. Silly me! TIA