Should parents pay nanny's for the nanny to take them out?

[NannyL24]

Can I have some advise please I started working as a registered nanny for a nurse last September due to cold weather and dark nights and alot of evening shifts I haven't needed to take the children out and they haven't wanted to they've been happy enough staying home playing outside with friends and playing games with me and other games they already have. However with it becoming warmer and the holidays I have said from day one of starting I am happy to take the two (6 years old and 8) to museums, bowling, cinema, parks etc. However this was recently brought up and the parent said I could get paid back this via tax which wouldnt be while a year later on a tax return and i doubt daily outings can be given back, I have said no to this due to working for an Income and not funding the children for a year out of my wages. Are parents meant to pay for their own children outings and even my costs as I am working? Just need some advise with me being new to this. Plus the mum already gets 80 percent back for childcare costs so doesn't pay my full wages out of her own wages

Hmrc actually used to have a tv advert about Nannies being employed!
If you ring them it’s a common thing for them to say yes sure put self employed nanny work through. What they often don’t do with Nannies is delve into the details of the job, to find out the true nature. And what your described so far isn’t a self employed role. Why not just ask her to employ you?!? It makes no sense. Then she’d have to pay you on any weeks off. You shouldn’t be expected to find another family that’s crazy!

I would look for a new job before the summer - where you can take DC out and get travel expenses and even go to a cafe sometimes, not have to do everything free on packed lunches.

Registering with HMRC as self-employed does not mean you have an official sanction for this employment status. If HMRC determine at a later date that you are employed, which you are, then they will demand the employers NI avoided to date, from you.

And payments into your pension? If you are employed or work as an agency employee they would normally do PAYE, NI, pension payments for you. All of this should be factored in, being self-employed is costing you a lot and your employer should pay you enough to cover this on top of a normal nanny's pay.
My daughter worked as a top-flight nanny 15 years ago, she was given cash to use, a chauffeur driven car, was flown all over the world first-class - often by private jet, had all her expenses paid, and got overtime for any hours over the basic, including anything over the 8 hours if she was away with them for 24 hours. This was about 15 years ago and her basic pay was £50k p.a.

Obvs the woman isn't going to put the nanny on.paye as it will cost her holiday pay, sick pay, pension and ni contributions. Having the nanny self employed is a cop out, lots of these rich people do it, same with grooms

Awful behaviour isn’t it. And sadly until people stand up for their rights and say no it will keep happening…

If you only work for her on a regular basis you cannot possibly be self employed.

You can. Really you can. There have been times in the last 21 years of self-employment where I haven't worked for anyone, let alone one person, and times when I've only carried out work for one person at a time.

Working only for one person does not, in isolation, mean that someone has to be an employee. It is one of many factors that may be considered by HMRC or later on a court if it is that someone's worker status needs to be reviewed.

Other factors that may be taken into consideration (and all of these I have read / heard said that "oooh but if if you do that you aren't self-employed!) include wearing a uniform provided by a client, having training offered by a client, and working the hours requested by a client. There are others.

Ultimately, the word which gets used the most when deciding a worker's status is "control" and how much "control" the client had over the work. If, say, in the case of the OP she wants to be a freelance nanny, then it's down to the client to state what her needs are, and up to the OP to tell her what she can offer her, how much she wants for doing it (be it per hour or for each day/week/month/ per activity), what hours she is willing to work, what day, and on it goes.

Admittedly, if the client in the case of the OP is wanting to treat the OP as an employee and then hand back the responsibility of being an employer to that of the OP, then that's not on and they're leaving themselves open to greater opportunity for the OP to bring a case against them at a later date, to argue they should have been employees.

As someone mentioned further up the thread, Uber was one such company that had a high-profile case against them by their workers. Another was Pimlico Plumbers. In both cases it was found in favour of the worker that the court felt they should have been employees, however, in both cases it took a huge amount of time to consider it all and to arrive at a conclusion. In the case of Uber, it was certainly reported that not all workers were happy about this either - it was a certain number of them only who brought the case. Many seemed very happy as they were, picking and choosing their work.

While nannying is one sector where I've heard there's been a spotlight shining on it (so to speak) in respect of people being self-employed where they may otherwise should have been employees, it doesn't automatically follow that this is the case.

As before, there are many, many factors that have to be considered, and the only way this is going to be a problem for the client of the OP is if the OP brings a case against her. The onus now is on the OP to take control of the situation and be that self-employed person which she claims to want to be, by setting out her terms and conditions to her client as a freelancer.

Have you any idea how difficult this new government has now made it for anyone to employee staff? You'd have less issues if you married them as opposed to employ them. It's an absolute minefield at the moment and I can well understand why a person on their own would not want to employ someone.

However, they have to be prepared to pay much more for the service and have less control over the worker.

It's not a cop-out if the person doing the work wants to be self-employed and is setting a rate which covers all the expenses you mention.

There is nothing wrong in providing a service to someone in a way that means you don't have to be employed. The onus is on the service provider to make it work in the correct way by keeping control of the arrangement.

Added to which, when you consider the types of jobs which are causing the friction as to whether or not someone should be self-employed, it has to be said they are frequently the jobs where the people hired to do it prove to be -at the very politest- an imperfect match. A client may well have to go through several people before finding the best fit, likewise so may the worker.

No, it's not "awful" per-se, it all depends on what the arrangement is. Doing the work I do, I'm charging a hell of a lot more for it than if I was an employee. This is to cover my holiday, all of the expenses (including NI), the cost of when I don't work, the list goes on.

Some people are exploited by choosing to register as self-employed and then being dictated to as if they were employees. It could be argued that these people need to "stand up" for their rights. I'd argue they shouldn't register as self-employed to begin with and should look for work elsewhere. I am a huge supporter of self-employment and nobody is forced into it.

@NannyL24ah yes, 30 years ago I worked as a nanny for a well off family who never had any food in and expected me to take them out on my wages- I would just be really factual about this -

As I said earlier; employment status is for the JOB not the person. I'm not sure how else I can say it. If you're woking for someone else on set hours you cannot possibly be self employed.

So how can I be self-employed when I work for someone 9 till 12 three times a week, every week, because that's what they ask for and it is what I am doing?

It's not a choice though. Nannies are employed.

Do you work for anyone else and did you set the timings of your employment?

I am employed for one of my jobs and SE for another. My SE role I tell them the hours I will work and when I'm available, I bring my tools of employment to work.

My employed job they set the hours and the pay and I use their equipment.

Yes iam well aware its not a choice but thos entitled employer obvs thinks she's above employment law

Sometimes I work for other people, sometimes I don't. With this client they stipulated the hours and I agreed, I also use whatever is in their home and what they provide. I set the rate I charge. They have the right to refuse. As I have said already, there are a great number of factors which are considered when assessing someone's worker status, there is not one single factor which trumps all else, and there never has been. The only time a status would be called into question would be if someone wanted to make a song & dance about it.

During my self-employed time I have also worked on company payrolls, specifically because these clients were so big that they'd never hire anyone in any other way. And again as I said already, on one project I had the choice of being on their payroll or sending them an invoice as a sub-contractor. In both cases the client told me how much they were paying for each (one was a price per hour, the other was a price per unit for the service delivered). In both cases it was down to me to pick & choose the hours I worked in order to complete the assignment.

It really, really isn't as simple as "being above employment law" though. And there are choices. People who know what they are doing do not just blindly sign up as self-employed just because one person told them to, and those who do this should question why they are doing so. You could just as easily put the blame at the feet of those who agree to being treated badly as to that of those who are offering to treat them in such a way.

Didn't take card.... Boy those were the days 😔