Interviewing potential nanny for share tomorrow - any hints/advice?

[KittyTN]

I am interviewing a nanny tomorrow with 2 other women for a 3 way split. Have never had a nanny before - obviously I will check references and request a CRB check but are there issues that anyone who has a nanny thinks might be worth considering or anything you wish you had known/ sorted out before starting with your nanny or share?

how they would discipline your child, what they would do with your children, eg play educational games or sit them in front of the tv. qualifications, ages of previous children they have looked after, have they had any problems in the past, any incidents with previous employers - can compare what they say with the previous employers.

what will she/other parents do if a child is sick?

because if nanny to one family, it may be the deal that nanny looks after child who can't go to school etc. What is plan for sharing?

also is she proposing to be flexible with regard to the days for each family?

these aren't only questions for nanny, of course, but for all 3 families.

how much time has she had off sick in past year?

what they think is acceptable food and snacks. Give a meal plan verbally

What would they do on a rainy day,sunny day, snowy day etc?

what do they see their role as being?

Can they ever be flexible with days and or hours?

Why did they leave their previous jobs?

Do they have paediatric first aid and public liability insurance?

Do they have business cover on their car (if they are required to use it)

Thanks everyone - loads of good suggestions there
Our initial plan is that one family has nanny Mon-Tues, I have her weds-fri with the remaining family dropping their baby to our houses for 5 hours on mon, tues, thurs, fri.
phraedd - what do you know about public liability insurance?
I assumed I will need to get employer liability plus possibly some additional cover for the child who will be cared for in my house for 10 hours/week. I intend to suggest to the other sharers that we share the cost of the insurance - I hope that is reasonable.
Also one of the other mums wants to offer a 6 month contract to guard against any sudden pregnancy - but I thought that if you employ someone even on a fixed term contract you are automatically liable for any statuatory rights of that employee. Does anyone know different? I am also abit concerned that the nanny may view this as a quite aggessive contract - I certainly dont want her to feel hard done by or resent my child in anyway.
In addition to all this is am having cold sweats at the prospect of leaving my son!!

You don't need to envolve Mon-Tue family at the look of it, as your children and theirs won't be cared for at the same time. So its you and the babys parents who need to agree the terms, with regard to Wed to Fri.
How old are your children? Ask nanny what suitable activites they would do with baby and your children.

just trust your instincts- do you like her and do you feel your chidren will get on/ have fun with her. you want them to want to be with her.

ds has just turned 1! all potential sharers have just one child - 2 aged 12 months and 6 month baby. If I like nanny I will get her to meet ds at home and see how they interact.

When discussing salary with her and the other mums you need to work out how the tax will be handled. Often it is best to agree a gross rather than net salary when its a nannyshare arrangement so that the tax is less complicated. If you agree a net pay deal with the nanny then you either have the complication of trying to split her tax code between you (not sure if HMRC will even let you split it three ways) or one person gets her whole tax allowance and the others don't get any. Obviously if you all agree to pay her a certain figure net then you may get a shock when you realise that only one of you is benefitting from her whole tax allowance and the other two are having to pay all the tax with no tax free allowance on part of her pay. Hope that makes sense!

we have briefly discussed this tax issue - one of the mums partners runs his own business and was proposing to get his accountant to do it. I think they want to have the nannys tax allowance but will reduce the other 2 families contribution to the total tax bill so that it is split proprotionately. clearly we are gong to need a very tight contract!

KittyTN, I don't feel it is in your best interest to allow one of the mothers to get their accountant to deal with the tax side of things. You need the services of an experience payroll company who knows a lot about nannyshares and what is and isn't permitted. I also feel you need someone impartial, so should the share break down, you don't lose their services. Have a chat with NannyTax, NannyPAYE, PAYE for Nannies etc to see what they offer.

A 3 way split may not be legal under Childcare Act 2006. I'd need to look up the exact wording, but my gut feel is that it puts it under Childminder regulations. Two way is fine though and at the look of it, it is two x two way splits, not 1 x three way as not all the childcare are cared for simultaneously.

You may certainly need very tight contracts between the parents involved in the share, so there are clear rules with regard to what happens in the event of a short-fall in tax payment, over payment, accounting/administrative costs, what happens when a family wants to leave the share, proportions of wear-and-tear on home and equipment, etc.

Hi Nick

Thank you for your advice - I admit that I did feel uncomfortable re the husbands account. Had no idea that there may be an issue with legality re childrens act. I have to rush off now but hopefully will be able to talk to you later. Many thanks!

only other thing i would add is that you need to consider how holiday time would work? who chooses the weeks, and do all 3 families need to coordinate?

i did a share with one other family and this aspect was a nightmare...

For the legality of a 3-way share:

The Childcare (Exemptions from Registration) Order 2008 - see section 3(1)(a)(ii)
"a child or children for particular parents ('the first parents') and, in addition, for a child or children for different parents ('the second parents'), wholly or mainly in the home of the first parents or the second parents or in both homes;"

That means that a nanny share between two sets of parents, is excluded from Childminder Registration. Which therefore means that when it is more than two sets of parents involved, it is NOT excluded. However, it is about the care of the children simultaneously... so in your case Kitty, you are fine as long as all the children are not cared for at the same time.

As I see it at the moment, you have the following situation:

P1 = You family
P2 = Mon/Tue family
P3 = Mon/Tue/Thur/Fri family

On Monday and Tuesday: P2 shares with P3
On Wednesday: P1 has nanny to themselves
On Thursday and Friday: P1 and P3 share nanny.

With regard to payroll, I've been reading some of the nanny payroll company websites to see what I could establish (as I've never done a nannyshare myself).

TaxNanny say that working two families concurrently can be treated as one joint employement. All costs are calculated proportionally against the time used by each family. Both families register with HMRC as joint employer's (one PAYE scheme).
TaxNanny details how salary can be split between employers, if you each operate your own PAYE scheme. See Option 3 on this page of their website.
I would have thought you are best off doing something similar, as your nanny will in effect have another job in addition to the one you are providing (ie. they are also working jointly for P2 and P3).
NannyShare.co.uk says that agreeing Gross salary with the nanny and each family operating their own PAYE scheme, achieves a NICs saving for the employers. NannyTax also recommends that each employer sets up their own PAYE scheme.

Did you see a trend there? Seems to me as though doing any kind of joint PAYE scheme is not recommended these days. So I would advise against using an accountant who works for one couples DH's business. I would suggest that each of the families operates their own PAYE scheme.

Have you had the interview with the nanny yet? How did it go?

When we nanny shared the saving in NI by having separate pay roll was more than the amount it costs to pay nannytax to do it...so worth it in my experience.
I will also warn you to get holiday entitlement and how it's arranged in writing by all share familys and the nanny. ie. nanny must tell all families when she wants time off..that there needs to be one spreadsheet where all days are recorded so nanny and all families know how many days are left etc, and if a family decides that they are going away for the weekend and so don't need nanny that they can't claim that as a nanny holiday day if she is still required to work for the other family.
(It was a nightmare with 2 families involved so hats off to you for trying 3!)

Interview question-wise I think iheartdusty and phreadd have covered it all

I'm currently working in a nanny share, and I heartily support nannynick in the tax scheme. It is so important to have separate agreements with each family to keep the tax situation fair.

Ask her what she would do if one baby was screaming - inconsolable, really upset for whatever reason - and then the other one starts to cry. I find those moments the hardest to deal with with my two!

Also ask her how she would cope practically with a baby and child - how will she keep an eye on the 1 yr old when changing the 6mth old's nappy? I guess the 1 yr old is crawling if not walking - how will she manage nappy changes whilst supervising both? and getting both into the buggy at the same time without one crawling off or it taking half an hour?

Hope this is helpful - just what I've had to deal with with my two in a nanny share.

Hi Everyone!

Thanks so much for your advice - it has really helped to clarify exactly what I should be looking for in terms of job description, other family agreements and tax. I feel really confident in asking for a contract to cover all potential problem areas - it's so easy to over look things like holiday arrangements by saying that 'we are all reasonable people'!

Actually, the interview yesterday has left me in abit of a tiz - in that our candidate is apparently not as great as we previously thought and we all feel that we had a potentially narrow escape. The nanny was known in passing to one of the mums. she was 28 (mature and hopefully abit maternal), local - walking distance to all of our houses, had previously baby sat for my neighbours, well spoken, happy to become Ofsted registered and came across very well. a couple of the references had been checked before interview and were great. However, she did not provide a ref for the last position of 2 years - she said that she had resigned because she couldn't get on with her employer. we asked her to let us have the contact details anyway - and said that with other good refs we would take a very balanced view of anything said but that we felt we owed it to our babies to check it out. Anyway, she texted one of the mums to say that we could check all her previous refs but not the last position as she had walked out and felt that her old employer wouldn't give her a ref anyway. Clearly this didn't look very good but I thought she was very nice, was probably over impressed that she had worked for my neighbours and thought 'poor girl, she's had really bad luck with a terrible employer' and was preparing to ask her to visit our home to meet ds and dh for second interview when P3 (thanks Nick!) called to say that she had mentioned this candidate to a couple of agencies both of whom went quiet initially then said let us guess her surname - they were both right - and said don't touch with a barge pole! I'm sure it's obvious to anyone reading this that she was of course sacked. Unfortunately the agencies would not say what for but that they wouldn't even have her on their books. very frightening. Actually feel that my confidence has been knocked and that using an agency may not be such a 'waste of money' after all.

PS Nick - you're amazing - I wish we lived in Surrey!

tbh i dont know many nannies who would want to work for 3 famillies in one week

it is hard enought to please one employer, let alone 3

though you actualy wouldnt have anything to do with mon/tue family

it would also be tricky i think to how to work out who pays what, ie one family has her 4 days, 1 family has her 2 days, and you 3 days

do you have to hav a nanny share finacally?

Hi Blondes
We were going to divide her salary proportionately to hours used not days e.g. if someone worked 24 hours for one family, 20 for another and 31 for the third family -'only' 55 hour working week but 75 child hours, so 24/75, 20/75 and 31/75 split.

Financially speaking the difference between a 3 day nanny for my son alone - roughly £16,500 cost to me versus a nanny who works full time for the 3 families (3 days in my home with the additional child only there for 5 hours on 2 days)roughly £10,500 cost to me - probably abit more if I use a more commercially priced agency nanny. So you can see a significant saving, for, I think, not too much disadvantage to my son. In fact, he is only just 1 and I quite liked the idea of him having a little mate for company without the baby farm feel of a nursery (which all close too early anyway). If there is no option but to have a 3 day/week nanny solely looking after my son then I could afford to do it. But you do get to a point where you think is it really worth it?

Have you thought about taking on a Nanny with their own child? (for yourself - not as a share) You get a playmate for your son and Nannies with own children coming along tend to charge less (though may not be quite the saving of a 3 way nanny share)

I suppose my initial reaction to a nanny with her own child is that she would have to be a very professional person not to favour her own child. Seems a bit too much like a very expensive CM. I don't mean to offend CMs in anyway. I was hoping that a nanny would be able to provide a more dedicated and peronalised service for my son than a CM with sereval other charges could manage. I really want any nanny to be able to have a genuine affection for my son so that he feels loved and valued. I remember going for tea at little friends houses when I was a child and whilst all their mothers were very kind to me I don't ever remember feeling equal to their own children (you wouldn't really expect to, would you?)- I imagine that is how my son would feel with a nanny with her own child.

You could try contacting some CMs and see how you feel about them once you've met them.

My CM and her family are absolutely lovely with ds and clearly feel very affectionate towards him. The youngest of her own 5 children is 7 and the oldest are nearly grown up, and she seems to enjoy having another little boy to care for. He often doesn't want to leave when it's time to come home and it seems they actually miss him when we go away for a few days.

I can't believe our luck at finding a childcare arrangement that I, ds and dp are so happy with, but this is to say that in our experience a CM can be just as caring as any nanny.

kitty - I have nannied with and without my own child and can honestly say it never affected any care that a child I looked after received. It worked out really well - my child and theirs had a playmate and they were like sisters. I spent 3½ years in that job and Mum and I both had our 2nd babies at the same time (perfect timing) and the girls still see each other now and they are 20 and 19!

sounds confusing kitty, but the accountant would work it out, i agree with nick that you shouldnt use the other familllies one, but a neutral company

i can honestly say that nannies who are mums dont favour their own child, but understand what you are saying, and yes having a nanny share is cheaper, but the nanny would also be caring and dividing her attention between the other familys child and yours - so the same as a nanny with own child iykwim

will keep an ear to the ground for you