nanny and au pair - another redundancy question

[HarrietTheSpy]

Can someone clarify something for me?

We have an after school nanny who is technically employed by us for X number of days per week. On the other X days she works for another family who are her primary employers. On these days though, both the families get together in the afternoons for various reasons which make sense now given all their ages, and interests etc.

To keep our share together, we hired an AP as her 'assistant' because otherwise there would be too many children for one person. The AP lives with us. The AP also works alongside the nanny on the X no days she is employed by us only. She's got some other duties apart from childcare.

(I know this all sounds crazy but it works for us at the moment!)

When both my children are in school we will be at overcapacity with after school care. It is also possible that the older children will be doing different extracurricular activities so that for other reasons it's not really going to be practical to commit to having them all looked after together.

By this time, the nanny will have worked for us for over two years.

My question is pretty specific: do I have two separate jobs here? So, if the nanny's job were to be made redundant and we went to APs only, would I be obliged to offer her some kind of other position, since there would be someone else around (AP) to do a lot of what she does?

I would be more than happy to offer the nanny the after school role and for her to take it but it is unlikely she could because of the hours we are offering. I do appreciate the help at other times, but I could live without this if I had to. It really is an APs job we would need at this point, if I'm honest.

Offering her the job has implications for the other family too should they lose the nanny.

How the heck does this all work in a share, the obligation to offer the nanny alternative employment in redundancy when there's another family involved?

We should have thought about this and didn't. I was just thinking about the AP side of things and how we;d cope with that.

how many children do you have and how many does the other family have. sounds like it must be a lot if you had to hire an assistant for the nanny

I think you have two separate people doing different jobs... the nanny and a au-pair. So to make one redundant you need to select one of them, so what would be the deciding factors on that?

I would be more than happy to offer the nanny the after school role and for her to take it but it is unlikely she could because of the hours we are offering.

That's fine I think... if there is a position available then you need to offer it.

How the heck does this all work in a share, the obligation to offer the nanny alternative employment in redundancy when there's another family involved?

No idea... may depend on your agreement with the other family. Sounds like the nanny is not employed by you and the other family at the same time... or are they?

"both the families get together in the afternoons for various reasons which make sense now given all their ages, and interests etc."

Is that something that's contracted... or just a case of your Au-Pair taking your children to meet with the other families children? In which case at that point you are employing the au-pair to care for them, not the nanny.

Sounds a bit of a nightmare... maybe the nanny will leave of their own free will at some point - then you can decide to just keep the au-pair.

I just spent all this time typing and lost my message.

Nick - I guess that's my question. If it's two different jobs DO I need to offer the nanny the AP job that does exist? Or is it like in a company when people are doing two different things one person's job is redundant it doesn't follow that the company has to consult other employees. For the sake of argument, if a company downsized in marketing would they have to consult with employees in Finance? But maybe my jobs are too similar.

No, we don't employ the nanny at the same time for any period, the set up is technically informal.

Another complicating factor I forgot to mention is the nanny can't do one of the days we would need her to work in any case, as she has something else on, so even if we offered her a the after school nanny job on her own, we'd not have all the coverage we needed.

Is there a simple solution here I'm missing?

Cheryl it's both the number of kids and their ages (which the nanny has said she doesn't feel comfortable looking after on her own) and the fact the oldest ones go to different schools in different parts of town and also have extracurricular stuff to get to. So unfortunately it wouldn't work to have just one person even if we tried to motivate her with lots and lots more cash.

The point about consultation is that it is supposed to be fair. I think you are focusing too much on looking for the letter of the law to tell you what to do: that is not how employment law (or any law for that matter) works - the law is there to deal with what happens when things go wrong, not to show you best practice to ensure things go right.

Yes there are some formal gateways to go through with redundancy, and you should make sure that you put down in writing at least twice what is going on - the 'at risk' letter and one to confirm the outcome of consultation. But the consultation itself consists of sitting down with your nanny and talking through the situation. Talk through your changing childcare needs and ask her if she can see herself involved in the future, and if so, how.

Mr A

So what happens in the situation that our views and hers don't match up in this informal chat and her idea is that the arrangement stays just as it is?

I have read a few posts on here about redundancy and have a general q?
Can you not just give an employee (ie your nanny) 'notice' to end employment? ie month/two months etc.
Does it always have to end up with some sort of redundancy package? which every employer seems so scared of - for obvious reasons.
Sorry to take away from original post,

It becomes a redundancy situation once someone has been employed for two years I believe.

It should be a formal discussion, held in private with no distractions and with reasonable written notice.

In the confirmation letter, say that at your meeting on [date] you discussed whether there may be any alternative employment with you and she said that she did not want to consider anything that was different from her current position [if that is true].

Regarding her other employer, in these situations you should have a written agreement between the two employers that each will consult with the other before proposing any changes to the nanny's terms and conditions, as well as covering practical things like how you share costs for food, bus fares etc.

General information and guidance for employers facing redundancy situations is available from ACAS and Business Link.

We don't employ her at the same time for any period, and haven't had a written agreement for the things you mention. We have informally agreed who hosts the 'playdate' on which days and who provides food then and any other arrangements that come up ad hoc.

Although I WOULD of course consult them out of courtesy regarding any change in our circumstance that affects our keeping the nanny on.

I am aware of the links (but thanks) what is different about our situation is that few people who those pages are designed for seem to employ two people doing similar things for this sort of job, where one would be staying on. IYSWIM. They either seem to be for relatively large companies with like 20 employees or one family employing a nanny when the sitaution is relatively straightforward.

The links were for the hijackers .

I agree it can be difficult to apply general guidance to specific non-trivial situations. Why not give ACAS a call and talk it through with them: if it did ever come to a tribunal you would be able to say 'I spoke to Fred Bloggs at ACAS and they suggested I...' rather than 'I asked about this on Mumsnet and somebody suggested I...', which will do you no good at all.

But you see I would be saying I spoke to Mr Anchovy...which would make all the difference

I trust you are joking.

For those new to Mumsnet it is probably worth pointing out that there are a number of regular posters here who are practicing professionals. However, anything posted here is for information only and does not constitute professional advice; neither the poster nor Mumsnet accept any liability in respect of this information.

Isn't there a Mr Anchovy at Skadden Carps?!

Oh all right, yes I was joking!!