Working on a day off - what sHOULD employers do? sorry, long one

[74slackbladder]

My standard week is a 4 day week
Sometimes i have to work on my day off because of the way the work falls and I have never had a problem with doing this and have never said that I cant do it.
Our current childcare situation makes it quite easy for me to do this as our nanny will be flexible and swap days as long as she has nothing specific planned for her day off, or she will work an extra day.
Generally, I take a day off in lieu at some other time, sometimes in teh same week.
For working the non-contracted day I dont get overtime, just the day in lieu. BUT previously when we only had one DC and he was in nursery or with a CM, I would claim back from work the cost of a days childcare becuase it meant that i Had to pay for him going in an extra day that we werent normally paying for..
Now we are in a different situation and nanny will swap without us paying her an extra day (though contractually, she could insist on it, I guess), i submit a 'claim' for travel expenses for grandparents to come and look after hte DCs on my normal non-working day. I do this mainly becuse it is easier to provide proof of this (simple mileage claim) that to try and produce evidence of what it costs to pay a nanny for one day. - we pay her monthly via a payrol so it would not be straightforward to produce the necessary paperwork.

My employer is beginning to push back on this a little as it is a 'benefit in kind;' and had cost implications for the company vis a vis NI & Tax.

In an ideal world, I would much rather they just paid me overtime if I work an extra day but they wont do it
I could also say, 'No', i wont work on my day off - though i feel this will open a whole other can of worms as my boss will prob go down the road, of 'well its clearly a full time position' and my one day off will be brought into question..
any advice / expereinces to share ?

Oh and I do have to work weekends too, sometimes, and dont get time off in lieu for that -

I'm a bit confused. Your employer sometimes wants you to swap a working day and your lovely nanny agrees to swap at no extra cost, yet you are submitting a claim for expenses you don't incur - this sounds like fraud. Many jobs incur some kind of work at the weekend or out of hours and depending on the industry / employer you should know what's expected. DH sometimes works or travels abroad one day at the weekend for no reimbursement. I think it's different if instead of working 4 days pw you work five and don't get the time back and actually have to pay the nanny extra hours - then she should bill you for the extra hours and you should ask for this to be reimbursed.

Hi I too am confused, you get paid for childcare?? on you day off if you work? then yes that is a benefit in kind, I think if you sit down and do the math you will realise you won't be paying that much for a day of childcare on your tax, plus your nanny swaps and changes, so in fact no cost to you? and actually saves you money working this way as from what you are saying you could either tell your employer that you can't do the out of hours anymore, or if I am totally honest, you could just live with the tax on your use of the nanny on the days you change, as you don't seem to be paying her extra from your post?

also if you pay her monthly via payroll it is a no brainer on working out what she costs a day, her yearly salary divide by 12 divide by 4 divide by whatever hours they work a week, so say 37 hours a week then times by hours worked on that day say 7, that is how payrole do it.

somehow i knew when i wrote it that it would end up coming over wrong.
whilst its easy to work out what paying the nanny would cost for one day, it would be less easy to prove unless i want to submit the payslips to my own expenses dept, which feels wrong somehow.
i'm not complainnig about the tax/ni impications on me - its the company who are concerned about it.
i dont think there is really a norm for the out of hours work i do as it is ad hoc. typically i lose a weekday day off once every month or two, and a weekend every couple of months.
to clarify, yes i do get reimbursed for any costs that i incurr additional to my normal childcare bill if i have to work on a day that is not normally my working days. otherwise i would have to be paying for childcare whilst not getting paid for work, if you see waht i mean.

You can claim for what you are actually using as childcare at the relevant time.

As noted above, anything else can be classed as fraud.

I'm not sure why you are not happy to demonstrate your costs to your company, but if this is really not acceptable then I'd say don't claim (especially as you are not actually out of pocket).

If you were ever discovered making a fraudulent claim (eg grandparents' travel when they didn't travel) then the "it's a simpler claim" won't save your integrity, your job, or possibly you from getting a criminal record.

I really wouldn't submit false claims for travel. If you get caught, it will end up on your record and I think might be something your employer is obliged to disclose to any future employer (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong). It might be easier but it could have horrendous long term consequences.

i do understand what you are all saying re fraud, but i suppose the real crux of it for me is not really the cash its the giving up of precious time which makes me want to be compensated in some other way than a day in lieu.
this is compounded by NOT getting time back or overtime or anything else when i have to tive up a weekend. perhaps its time i raised this thorny issue with my manager again...and as i have said to her in the past, if i was on some super, management level salary, i would be more willing to just suck it up, but sadly that is not the case!
t

TBH I think most people in reasonably responsible jobs have to work some weekends/late nights/all night for no extra cash. That's just how it is - I know I do, DH does, everyone we know does...

I agree with Love, most people I know have to work the occasional weekend without getting the time back. Only those that work in the public sector can.

I also like you work four days and sometimes have to work on my day off if it falls on our reporting day. I wouldn't dream of claiming expenses for it. As far as I'm concerned being allowed to work part time is a bit of a luxury and sometimes you have to suck these things up as the benefits outweigh the negatives.

I think other than negotiating overtime or (if that would set a precedent for the rest of the staff) a general pay rise on the basis of needing to switch your shifts from time to time there is not much more that can be done.

Dh works a contracted week but he enjoys that benefit only on the basis that he will work on his day off (and take TOIL) when it is needed. From our point of view it is a bonus that he gets to work his hours over 4 days most weeks rather than being a problem that sometimes he can't. It is a perspective thing.

I also think you need to show a bit of give and take here - yes, it must be annoying to lose your "precious time".... but you are surely gaining it back when you take a day in lieu? Also working occasional w/ends must be a pain, but from your posts I assume that this was the case before you had children, and must therefore be the case for all the staff doing your role, whether they have DCs or not. It must therefore be a pain for all concerned.

Given the current economic climate, I would bite your tongue and just get on with it.

I also meant to say that in return for being flexible I can swap my non working day if I need to if my son's hospital appointments fall on a working day rather than taking holidays or unpaid leave . That kind of flexibility is priceless.

IMHO getting arsey over things only leads to benefits like these being seen as hassle and potentially withdrawn.

"i submit a 'claim' for travel expenses for grandparents to come and look after hte DCs on my normal non-working day. I do this mainly becuse it is easier to provide proof of this (simple mileage claim) that to try and produce evidence of what it costs to pay a nanny for one day. - we pay her monthly via a payrol so it would not be straightforward to produce the necessary paperwork."

I'm confused. Why do you need evidence of what it costs to pay a nanny for the day? Your nanny swaps days, yes? So you're not incurring any additional costs. And you get a day in lieu? Are you really trying to claim fraudulent expenses you are not entitled to because you want extra money as well as a day in lieu?

Apologies if I'm misunderstood, but that sounds a bit .

In terms of not wanting to work extra at weekends that's an entirely different issue. If your workload is higher than it should be you could address that with your employer, ideally with a solution rather than just a complaint. But with most reasonably responsible jobs you don't just work contracted hours, there's a bit extra here and there. Do you work literally your contract 9-5 or whatever during the week, is it that kind of job, or is it more like 8.30 - 6 or something?

I am also confused - is your DC looked after by grandparents or not? If not then why are you submitting claims for their travel?

And you aren't losing out as your nanny swops days. And if you get days off in lieu you again aren't losing out.

I think a lot of jobs involve needing to work when you aren't contracted to - it's just one of those things I think.

You are at risk of being dismissed for gross misconduct; fraud is also a criminal rather than civil matter, and this has far more repurcussions in legal and future employment terms.

Take your head out of the sand, stop thinking you are entitled to something, and thank your lucky stars that you haven't been caught to date. I'd also think about changing your username and ensuring you don't go on these boards from work computers for a while.

Given that your boss refers to 'tax and NI' implications, it sounds to me like he smells a rat already

Guys we can tone down the "it's illegal you'll end up in klink" speach.

Claiming your child care from work is not illegal. Its perfectly allowable. In fact you can claim anything from where you work just as long as a) they agree and b) you pay the correct BIK on the items.

As your boss has signed it off / authorised it you're not going to get done for fraud. OK claiming mileage isn't the correct way to do it but if you've presumably done this once or twice HMRC will fine you should they find out but you're not at the top of the investigations list.

The best way to handle this is if you are needed to do an extra day get your nanny / nursery / whatever to generate an invoice they can give to your boss and leave you out of the loop.

If the grandparents do it ask for the money it costs them to drive over as a payment as normal through your pay packet.

But it doesn't sound as though these are genuine expenses Grevling- the OP isn't incurring grandparent mileage or additional pay for her nanny as a result of working extra then taking a day in lieu, and it seems unlikely her boss would have ok'd claiming false expenses.

Again, apologies OP if i've misunderstood you.

It does depend on if the boss agreed. I was under the impression that he had signed them off.

I assume the OP's boss thinks she genuinely is incurring these expenses, if she is presenting them to him as being her childcare costs for extra days working? Or have I misunderstood, OP?

I agree it does sound as though they were signed off, but I would expect that to have been on the understanding that the expenses were genuinely incurred. I would guess that if I'm correct in understanding that they were false expenses they would not have been agreed if the boss had known and therefore were claimed fraudulently.

Lots of ifs there I know!

OP has said that she puts in false claims for mileage because the hassle of switching her normal day off no longer incurs genuine expense. She has told us that she claims for mileage to her parents when her parents aren't even involved in looking after her DC. That is fraud. And it is still fraud if her boss has ok'd it (the boss then is a participant in the fraud).

In the v large company I do a lot of work for, being caught claiming for expenses not genuinely incurred could easily result in immediate dismissal unless there were strongly exonerating circumstances. Whether you were dismissed or not would depend on seniority/level of trust within the organisation, whether the expense claim was done under certain knowledge of fraudulent nature, and intent. I imagine the numbers would be very small (say 45p X say 30 miles X say four trips per month = £50 a month), but that isn't really the point (and HR wouldn't see that as a defence). Claiming that the boss signing them off knew what was going on and had agreed to this process would be a defence but if HR uncovered this then I'd bet money on the boss denying all such knowledge, because that would put him in line for dismissal.

In one company I worked for a few years back, we would occasionally run investigations on individuals (the nature of the industry obliged us to undertake investigations in certain circumstances). It was standard to check recorded phone calls, emails and expense claims as part of this, and it was well known that you could avoid an awful lot of hassle if you wanted to dismiss someone (for whatever reason) if you uncovered 'imaginative' expense claims. Would we have called the police in over something like consistent and long-running fraudulent claims? On balance, almost certainly not, but the option is there for companies that uncover stuff like this.

HMRC of course wouldn't give a stuff for something like this, and many smaller/lower profile companies might just reprimand someone (and potentially ask for all the money back), some companies might not even care about something like this. But that doesn't remove the fact that someone claiming for expenses not incurred is committing fraud.

Oh I've just reread the OP!! The OP is totally fraudulently claiming expenses!!

The nanny swaps days so OP is not out of pocket, that's why she can't show the nanny's payslip as proof, but instead makes a 'claim' for grandparent's mileage even though it's the nanny looking after the kids.

I think I must have misread it because I subconsciously couldn't believe that someone would think it was ok to do this never mind posting on a public forum for help in keeping it going when her boss is getting suspicious!!!!!!!!

This is how the MPs got into trouble. They didn't think their work terms were fair, but rather than addressing that issue, they rewarded themselves a bit extra through a whole variety of dodgy expenses. Some of those MPs are now in jail, so clearly this is a very serious matter.

Stop claiming false expenses, count yourself lucky you didn't get caught, and sort out the workload issues with your boss.

OP, maybe you should delete this thread, name change and, um, stop claiming fraudulent expenses? It would seem a prudent move!

op
This reminds me about my mate who asked me if I would keep all my receipts for lunches out, and give it to him, as he could claim lunches as expenses in his line of work, but he preferred to save money and made his own packed lunch.... Considering I spent around £5-£10 per day on lunch, it would have been good money for him, had I agreed!!

Tixy I just wanted to add, it's not true to say that in the public sector you can work weekends and get time back. DH and I do this (both public sector) and can't do so. Apologies to OP for butting in.