Childminder fees is this right?

[mummybear2104]

My son attends a childminder in the school holidays only. The childminder takes annual leave during some of these holidays and charges us half fees for this time. For example in the summer holidays worked 4 weeks out of 6. This is due to happen again at Christmas so no cover is being provided. Is this the norm? Just to add if we take holidays during this time we would expect to pay half.

I wouldn’t expect to pay no. Can you find someone else? Seems a bit pointless having a holiday only childminder that isn’t available all the holidays.

Thank you teakitten. I should probably add that my son's sibling goes to the childminder the whole year so it's not a holidays only service.

Depend on the contract you have with your childminder. When I had a childminder, holiday she took were half pay as our contract. I have a friend who has to pay holiday in full for her childminder as it was in her contract.

They are all different. Mine is we lay nothing when she's on holiday but half fees when we go away. All depends on contract.

Totally depends on your contract. Most round here either have half pay for both theirs and your holiday, or their holiday is free but yours is paid in full. As they are self employed they pick their terms and you decide whether to accept them.

Doesn’t sound normal from my experience. You shouldn’t be charged anything if your childminder has chosen to go on holiday.

We’ve used two and both would also refund us for any unexpected days off due to them being ill, their own kids needing them that day, etc.

If we went away we paid as it was our choice and not theirs. I would usually find out when they were taking their holidays and organise to take ours at the same time.

Depends on your contract, when I had a similar situation I paid half fees for the younger one who went all year but just booked ( and paid for) the days I wanted for the older one in school holidays and obviously couldn't book the date she was on holiday.

Thanks for all your responses. She just added my second child to the contract for the one that attends all year. It just feels like if the service provided for one child is only in school holidays then surely the leave entitlement wouldn't be the same and the expectation to pay for that child? Like you say self employed can set it how they like I guess.

Yes Jules912 my thinking would be that arrangement is much more reasonable, ultimately it means we are in effect paying for a service that isn't being offered and have to pay for another service or find cover. There are quite a few children attend over the holiday period at various times and unfortunately I don't know any of the other parents to ask if they get charged as well in this way.

I think that they are taking the piss. Why would they expect to be paid if they are not providing the service?

If she didn't charge parents while she was off she would have to raise her hourly rate to build in an extra 4 weeks' wages a year. By that method you would pay a much lower proportion of her holiday pay than the parents who have their kids with her all year round. So I would say this method is very unfair on you and if you point it out she might reconsider.

Mine are older now, but our childminder didn’t charge anything if she was off. However, we paid full fees if we went away. We also paid all bank holidays, but she was off.

Some childminders charge nothing for their holidays and full fees for child's holidays.

Some charge half fees for both.

It probably works out the same either way.

I can see why it grates but at the same time it’s probably not going to be worth her while to keep a place available for your child (which could otherwise go to another child all year round) if she didn’t charge as she currently does.

The alternative is to use holiday clubs but provision varies massively so you might find that they’re more expensive than the childminder anyway (I saw one recently that was £300 for three short days!!) or only run during school hours. Plus obviously the adult to child ratio is much higher and they won’t be with their sibling.

Thank you all, we will aim to discuss it but as it's so hard to find childcare we're probably stuck with whatever she suggests :(

Her business her rules . Most charge full fees for your holidays and none for their own. But every childminder is different .

Yes we pay half during holidays, all fine by me she is amazing and has her own finances to run

So am I right in thinking that instead of charging you 100% when you're on holiday she charges 50% for yours and 50% for hers meaning that over 6 weeks you're paying the same either way?

When I was a childminder I didn't charge if I was on holiday, as I was not able to provide the service. It meant I didn't take as many holidays as I would have been entitled to as an employee as I couldn't afford to and in the long run led to burn out. I wish I had charged something but holidays were such a contentious issue it wasn't worth the hassle!

Our childminder does not charge when they take holiday but if we did when they were working, we'd have to pay in full.
For the term-time only contracts she charges a 50% retainer fee for over school holiday periods. So I guess she makes up for the holiday pay there, as quite a few kids are just wrap-around care for school or have teacher parents who don't need holidays covered.