Determining whether someone is employed or self-employed

[RightOcciputAnterior]

Hi all,

I'd be grateful for advice and opinions on the following scenario. I've namechanged because it's fairly specific and outing.

I will be returning to work after maternity leave next year. We are in the process of finding a cleaner and mother's help whose duties will be doing around 4 hours of housework a week, plus collecting our baby from nursery two nights a week and minding him until we get home from work around half an hour later (there are no nurseries in our small town which stay open late enough, sadly). So she will be working for around 5 hours a week or us, earning around £10/hour gross (in our part of the country this is a good wage for a nanny and an excellent wage for a cleaner!).

We have found a suitable candidate, who is already self-employed doing another job and who is happy to work for us on a self-employed basis doing around the 5 hours a week we need. I just wondered how we can check whether it's OK for us to take her on as a self-employed contractor? There is a calculator on the HMRC website which I have looked at, but I'm not sure how to answer the key question - it asks whether we'd be happy to accept somebody else to do the work if the lady we are taking on can't do it. We would be, as long as the person were equally qualified (i.e. had some childcare experience, as well as being a cleaner), but I imagine we might want to meet them/speak to them first - the HMRC calculator seems to suggest that wanting to meet them first automatically makes them an employee, as they're taken on on a "personal service" basis.

How can we check whether our mother's help should be employed or self-employed? We don't mind taking her on as employed - we'd just use Nannytax or equivalent to sort out tax and pension. I just don't want to do that unnecessarily if we don't need to.

Would be grateful for any thoughts or advice - thank you.

Being able to substitute someone else to do the job with no notice is one of the key features of being self employed, hence why it is almost impossible for Nannies to be self-employed.
My cleaner is self employed, but she works with her sister who sometimes comes instead.
If you decide she is self employed and HMRC find otherwise you the employer are liable for the fine and unpaid tax and NI.

Another thought is your hour rate should be negotiated gross so that you as the employers are not affected by other work she might take on.

@lonecatwithkitten Thank you - that's very helpful. I had already realised it would be prudent to pay her gross. It's very helpful to get clarity on the employed vs self-employed thing. I am actually self-employed myself, but as one of several joint owners of a business, so it's all very different! Thank you!