A mother's query about childminder holiday entitlement

[Dooze]

Hello - can anyone help me with a query? I started using a childminder about 6 months ago just one day a week for a whole day. She told me that she was entitled to holiday pay, and it would work out pro-rata as two days per year, I also paid her half day for Xmas day and new years day as they fell on the day I use her. Is this right that we are legally obliged to pay holiday and bank holidays, or is this an agreement between childminder and parent? My child is the childminders first charge - so we're both new to this and I want to review our contract and not clear with the legal side.

thats my problem, there are only 4 childminders in our little village, they are all very close, and if i did not use my current one out of loyalty to her the others just would not have them, all their contracts are more or less the same! and i know they all know what each other charge parents as when i have used another one for a couple of days before the other one charged me to the £ the same as my current one. what i dont get, is childminders operate a business, she has company letter head and everything, however if my business was closed I would not make any money as i was not there to provide the service which I advertise. Ia anyone else having similar problems?

do you take holidays from your childminder or do you work 52 weeks a year? do yoy get paid when your boss is on holiday?

The answer is you have allocated holidays but your childminder can not take a child on just for the week you are on holiday the way I work with my parents is if they have to find alternative childcare they don't pay as would in effect pay double for those periods however if a parent is going away they must pay as it is not my choice not to work while they are away and also I must still pay my assistant

the other option available is half rate for all holidays so if you and childminder can negotiate them they maybe the same as yours and you only pay half rate or you pay half rate for your holidays and for cm's holidays

I don't what kitkat's boss has to do with it since she is not the childminder's boss. And I think her problem is that she has to pay the childminder when the childminder is on holiday, but is happy to pay when it is she who is onholiday.

Kitkat, as you say that all the childminders in the area are in this together (which in my book is price fixing and ought to be illegal!) I think you are stuck. Is it possible to go further afield for a childminder? Or possibly you could ask the childminder to rearrange the pricing structure so that you don't pay when she is on hols but you pay a higher hourly rate so that it ends up the same amount of money on an annual basis. That way you could better budget for thime you have to pay another childminder.

I pay full rate when I am on holiday. my childminder has given me a list of her holidays for the year, 6 full weeks in total, this is actually more than my boss allows and pays me for, 4 of these weeks are during school holidays, so in effect i would not just be paying for before and after school but 4 full time weeks, as i dont drive it would be very difficult for me to go further afield, im actually looking into my mother in law looking after the girls but i want to be able to pay her, and if i want to be able to claim help towards paying her she then has to register with OFSTED.

there must be something wrong then if you have to pay full rate for your own holidays and hers and it is 2 - 4 weeks holiday not 6 have you got an ncma contract cos it says so on there in notes on back of pages you signed you might need to review your contract with your childminder as this sounds unreasonable amount as that is in effect 10 weeks holiday a year

KitKat2507, registering with Ofsted is not enough for you to qualify for tax credits where a grandparent is the childminder - they also have to have other mindees so you need to be sure you MIL is open to this. Its to stop abuse of tax credits.

Hi happy mummy, I have spoken to the tax credits and ofsted and they do not need to have other mindees, but would have to meet the standard needed to be a CM they can have whichever children they want to as she would be actually qualified to have anyones children, bu does not have to, if that makes sense

Another thing grandparents need to consider if they register as a Childminder and receive payment is this: If they are already taxpayers they will pay tax from the earnings from childminding. If they are not paying tax now (on say a pension), the earnings from childminding might push them into the taxable pay bracket. They will have to declare the earnings to HMRC.

I charge half pay for my holidays of 4 weeks annually and also for my childrens parents 4 weeks.Doing that i lose 10 weeks pay a year as i have four families i childmind for.
We are badly underpaid for the hard work we do as it is and really it would not be worth my while doing it if my husband did not have a good job. My electric and gas bills have almost doubled in the last three years . unfortunately my wages havent. I put my fees up by 25p per hour this year.

I know the OP is old but it is outrageous for a CM to charge for her own 4wks holiday. Yes, charge for parents holidays as the CM is available for work then but how can a self-employed person think it justifiable to charge when they are not available to deliver the service they are being paid for?

The hours they work or their low salaries are irrelevant here. Someone buying a service is not responsible for the life choices of the person providing that service.

You cannot have it both ways. Either you are self employed or you are not. I have a good friend who is an IT contractor. She earn about 150k a week which means every week she takes off loses her about 3k. Can she say to Barclaycard, 'sorry, I still want that 3k even though I'll be doing nothing for you that week? They'd show her the door and quite right too!

Sorry that should say, 150k a year. She earns good money but not that good.

I agree, childminders should never charge for their own holidays.
Ridiculous.

I'm a Cm and basically only work term-time and don't charge a retainer for holidays.
That means that I get my holidays with my own kids and DH and the parents only pay if they take their child out of my care during term-time.
In the summer holidays I only offer ad-hoc care for one or two days a week, just so the mindee does not 'forget' us.

i dont charge for my holidays but parents to pay through my holidays as i work out the yearly fee and deduct my holidays from it and divide by 12months so parents pay the same all year round regardless of who is on holiday. i do however charge for 3 public holidays as they are outwith annual leave xmas, new yr and easter monday all off my parents dont work these so dont have to pay any1 else to watch there children plus they themselfs are being paid for those days.

It is up to the childminder to set his/her rates according to what they think will be acceptable to the customers and to some extent in the locality. As we all know, £6.75 an hour that is often the going rate around Surrey and certainly in many of the London boroughs, simply would not work elsewhere where a figure almost half of that might be more commonplace.

If the childminder believes that their offer of a contract to a parent will be accepted if it includes full holiday-pay then fine - that is a commmercial judgement for the minder. I know a minder (who is very popular and always "full") who charges three full-days a year for her training and her parents seem more than happy to pay it.

It is all to do with the seller pitching the best offer to the buyer. A good example of this is we have a minder in our locality whose charges are way out of line with others. The typical rate around here is between £4 and £5 per hour - I know of nobody who charges a day rate - everything is by the hour. Anyway, this woman moved into the area a couple of years ago and set her rates at £6.50 an hour and full pay for 3 weeks holiday. The amazing thing is she is always getting the most enquiries as parents somehow see her as being better, "Well she must be better if she is charging £6.50 an hour", one prospective parent said to me.

She does live in a very appealing house in a lovely road which I know doesn't necessarily mean a thing but she is genuinely a very good minder and her last three Ofsted inspections have been a 'good' followed by an 'outstanding' followed by another 'good' in all areas.

The rest of us would dearly love to step up our rates a bit and build in some holiday-pay but are worried we will somehow not be able to attract the enquiries.

I live in Tayside and my hourly rate of pay is £3.25. Nothing like down south and i have the same bills and overheads to pay. Iam amazed that so many people think it is wrong for me to take a half fee whilst on holiday. As far a i know for the 16 years i have done this the cm iam friendly with do the same.
Wonder if the employed would be so keen to do without their holiday pay.
I would not be able to run my business and survive financally otherwise.

But that's the point, WW! Paid holiday is a benefit of the employed.

I am employed and am restricted as to when I can take my holidays. If I was self-employed this would not be an issue. There are pros and cons to both.

How much you charge is irrelevant. I think if you looked at a sample of self-employed people across the board you would likely find that you are the only one charging for your holiday. As I said earlier, my friend is self-employed and could not possibly expect the bank/credit card company to pay her when she is not available to deliver to them the service she is paid for.

I was at a friends house this afternoon and three of the girls there were cm. As i said before we all get half pay for our holidays.
Not all employed people are restricted to when they take there holidays and i do my best to try and work in with the parents that employ me. i have never had a complaint about paying me half fee when iam on holiday during the 16 years i have done this job.

Yes, but your friends are all other CMs. I meant a range of other self-employed people. As I said, my friend loses about 3k a week when she takes holidays. She needs to add this on to the cost of a holiday to work out the true cost. That's the thing with being self-employed.

If you ask for it and get paid it then that's fine but it is not the norm.

You are basically asking them to pay for your service when you are not willing to provide it. I once took a 1yr supply contract with a school. I told them I had booked a holiday the week before Oct half term. They didn't pay me as I didn't work nor did they pay me the following week because school was not open even though I was available. But that's the way it goes.

Jennipenni Sorry, I know this is old... but...
"Parents should be made aware that as childminders who work very long days (longer than teachers and the average parent's, even including commuting time)"

ummmm, no.... I'm a teacher, "work" shorter hours than a cm.... but quite a long day, as I'm doing what you're doing.... looking after my child, entertaining, running around, cooking, cleaning...etc... after work, too... until bedtime. SO, I disagree.

Do you have children, jennipenni? Just curious because of some of the comments I've read. Sorry to be nosey.

Yes, BUT StarExpat - that's what a childminder also does after minding hours!

Take today. I've had 6 children here all day. The first arrived at 8am; the last left at 7pm.

After they're gone, I still have my own children to care for, to insist on homework and practice done and to get to bed.

Only then can I turn to the paperwork, planning and accounts that childminders also do. I tidy up and clean after the minded children - no cleaner like in a school or nursery. Some nights I have training - no nice INSET days for us.

Oh, and Archstanton: IT contractors will have negotiated a rate to cover their holidays. So will some childminders, of course, but one way or another, ALL are paid for their holidays.
Your friend will not lose 3k for her holidays: she will already have factored it into her rate, which is why IT contractors are paid so much more than employees.

sorry, just hought about that post... I'm not saying "my day is harder/longer than anyone elses..." I'm simply saying that we all have very long days, especially when we have children. I realize that cms also wake early with their own dc then work a very long day and also have to balance family life...etc. I know cms work very, very hard and it is an incredibly demanding job, which I respect very much.

I just disagree with jp'sstatement that a cm's job is a longer day than teachers and "average parents"

Agree with Tanith although I try very hard to get paperwork done in the evenings but can't so I end up doing it over the weekend. My kids suffer as mummy can't play and I'm not even being paid to make it worthwhile!!

Yes, Tanith, I agree. It is long day. But not longer than a teacher/parent.
Same here... I teach young children during the day then collect my toddler asap, entertain him, run around with him...etc (later will be homework when he gets older), dinner, cleaning...etc., then after he's in bed, my own paperwork for my job (I sympathize with you on that). Marking, curriculum, planning, reports...etc something daily.
It's a long day.
I'm in no way saying "my job is more difficult or longer day than yours". Just pointing out that JenniPenni's statement that a cm's job is longer than a teacher's or "average parent". It's not.