nannies – Page 17 – Nannyjob blog

Zero-Hours contracts

‘Zero hours contract’ is a non-legal term used to describe many different types of casual agreements between an employer and an individual.

Generally speaking, a zero hours contract is one in which the employer does not guarantee the individual any hours of work. The employer offers the individual work when it arises, and the individual can either accept the work offered, or decide not to take up the offer of work on that occasion.

Regardless of how many hours are offered, the employer must pay at least the National Minimum Wage.

Everyone employed on a zero hours contract is entitled to statutory employment rights. There are no exceptions.

A person will benefit from the employment rights associated with their employment status and individuals on a zero hours contract will either have the employment status of a ’worker’ or an ‘employee’.

Any individual on a zero hours contract who is a ‘worker’ will be entitled to at least the National Minimum Wage, paid annual leave, rest breaks and protection from discrimination.

Unpaid Parental Leave

Eligible employees can take unpaid parental leave to look after their child’s welfare, for example,

spend more time with their children

look at new schools

settle children into new childcare arrangements

spend more time with family, such as visiting grandparents

Their employment rights are protected during parental leave.

Parental leave is unpaid. Employees are entitled to 18 weeks leave for each child and adopted child, up to their 18^th birthday.

The limit on how much parental leave each parent can take in a year is 4 weeks for each child (unless the employer agrees otherwise).

You must take parental leave as whole weeks (eg 1 week or 2 weeks) rather than individual days, unless your employer agrees otherwise or if your child is disabled. You don’t have to take all the leave at once.

Employees qualify if all of these apply:

they’ve been in the company for more than a year

they’re named on the child’s birth or adoption certificate or they have or expect to have parental responsibility

Employees must give 21 days’ notice before their intended start date. If they or their partner are having a baby or adopting, it’s 21 days before the week the baby or child is expected.

Employees must confirm the start and end dates in their notice. Unless an employer requests it, this doesn’t have to be in writing.

Discrimination

It is against the law to treat someone less favourably than someone else because of a personal characteristic such as religion, sex, gender reassignment or age.

Discrimination can include:

not hiring someone
selecting a particular person for redundancy
paying someone less than another worker without good reason

You can discriminate against someone even if you do not intend to. For example, you can discriminate indirectly by offering working conditions or rules that disadvantage one group of people more than another.

Discrimination in Job adverts

You must not state or imply in a job advert that you’ll discriminate against anyone. This includes saying that you are not able to cater for workers with a disability.

Only use phrases like ‘recent graduate’ or ‘highly experienced’ when these are actual requirements of the job. Otherwise you could discriminate against younger or older people who might not have had the opportunity to get qualifications.

Where you advertise might cause indirect discrimination – for example, advertising only in men’s magazines.

Nanny and Additional Employment

When nanny gets an additional job whilst still in your employ, it is her responsibility to make sure her tax codes in each employment are correct.

As an employer, you could always notify her of her tax situation in your employment and what should happen in her 2^nd job. This way you have mitigated any risk of an under payment for nanny and potentially your costs increasing if you have agreed a net wage.

If you are nanny’s main job and have the tax code 1250L for her, if she gets another job, Basic Rate tax (BR) must be applied in her other job. This can be indicated by nanny completing a starter checklist and ticking statement C –

https://public-online.hmrc.gov.uk/lc/content/xfaforms/profiles/forms.html?contentRoot=repository:///Applications/PersonalTax_iForms/1.0/SC&template=SC.xdp

Bank Holidays

Bank Holidays 2020 2020 is upon us and it is always handy to have a list of the bank holidays for the year and what day of the week they fall on. These are the dates of the bank holidays in 2020 for England.
1 January	Wednesday	New Year’s Day
10 April	Friday	Good Friday
13 April	Monday	Easter Monday
8 May	Friday	Early May Bank Holiday
25 May	Monday	Spring bank holiday
31 August	Monday	Summer bank holiday
25 December	Friday	Christmas Day
28 December	Monday	Boxing Day

If a bank holiday is on a weekend, a ‘substitute’ weekday becomes a bank holiday, normally the following Monday.

It is worth noting that if nanny does not work 5 days a week that she is still entitled to bank holidays on a pro rata basis, for example if nanny only works 3 days per week then she is still entitled to 3/5ths of the 8 bank holidays whether her working day falls on a bank holiday or not.

Top 10 essential items every Nanny carries

Like every child is different, every Nanny and Manny are different, but the one thing they all have in common is that they are always prepared! Here are our top 10 essential items that every Nanny carries with them. What is your most essential item? Or What have we missed off our list?

Mobile Phone with emergency contacts in – Mum, Dad, Grandparents, Neighbour, Doctor, Dentist, whoever is on your list make sure you have a plan of action if there is an emergency!
Medical Information for each child. In the UK we have the Red Book which should contain all the vital info you need such as food allergies, medication, etc. But if you don’t have this then keep a note handy with all the details. If the child, you care for becomes ill the first questions you will be asked are ‘Is the child taking any medication’ ‘Does the child have any allergies’ Having this information to hand may save valuable time.
First Aid Kit – You can buy a ready made one or simply carry the necessary items around with you such as Plasters, antiseptic wipes, safety pins, tweezers, gauze dressings, sterile eye dressings, crepe roll bandage, triangular bandage, disposable gloves.
Tissues, wet wipes and hand sanitizer.
Sunscreen and lip balm, even the most overcast days can require some protection from the sun, always better to be safe.
Nappies (Or underwear if potty trained), Changing mat, wipes, cream disposable potty, – you never know when you might be caught out!
Change of clothing, what child hasn’t rolled in the mud or been sick and needs to be changed.
Healthy snacks – children are constantly hungry, ready prepared fruit, rice cakes, raisins, prepped veg and hummus. All great energy boosters if you have a flagging child.
Bottled Water – Great for cleaning up a messy child or for a drink break through the day.
Small toys and books, if you must queue, go on public transport of just keep a child occupied while you wait for something, having a toy or book handy will help deal with any boredom the child might feel.

Nanny and Private use of Car

If you have provided nanny with private use of a car, you need to inform HMRC straightaway. The quickest way is to complete a form P46 car

By notifying them straightaway, they will reduce nanny’s tax code the month she is given the car.

Failure to tell them when she has the car, will mean her tax code will be coded incorrectly causing an under payment.

Even though you have notified HMRC of the car via a P46 car, you will need to complete a P11d and pay Class 1A National Insurance on the benefit amount.

Please see link below

www.gov.uk/tell-hmrc-company-car

Live in Nannies

There has been a rise in live-in nannies, and with that confusion over nanny’s legal pay.

If nanny lives in the family home, is treated as part of the family – eating most meals with them and spending time together such as leisure activities and evening time in the same sitting room, then the national minimum wage does not apply.

The national minimum wage will come into effect for nanny’s who are not treated as part of the family, but instead the employer will be able to use the offset allowance when the nanny is live-in by £7.55 a day, £52.85 for a whole week.

The other scenario is that nanny is given accommodation separate to that of the family, this then becomes a benefit in kind and needs to be declared annually to HMRC.

If there is a benefit in kind, it will mean nanny’s tax code will be decreased and her net pay goes down and as an employer having to pay an additional national insurance on the benefit amount.

The law is very strict, so you need to make sure you know how to proceed with your live in nanny.

Understanding Tax Codes

Your tax code determines the amount of tax you pay each pay period and for current tax year the standard tax code is 1250L.

Whatever your tax code the numbers denote the amount you can earn each year before you are liable to pay tax, you just need to add a zero to the end of code and this then means the 1250 code gives you a figure of £12,500 you can earn before you pay tax.

This amount is then split into the number of pay periods you will have in the tax year, 52 if weekly and 12 if monthly.

Weekly £12500/52 = £240.38

Monthly £12500/12 = £1041.67

Once you have reached the above earnings in each pay period you then pay tax at 20%.

If you’re annual earnings are above £50,001.00 then the tax rate increases to 40% on earnings above this.

If you have several jobs it could well be that one of your employers has the full allowance (£12,500.00) and the other is using a tax code of BR, BR denotes that all earnings in that employee pay tax at 20% as the full allowance is being used elsewhere.

Should both employers have the full tax code, you will then need to contact HMRC directly (0300 200 3300) to get one of these corrected, you will need your NI number to hand when contacting them.

Payroll Terms

These are some of the most common terms used in payroll.

Gross pay – this is the pay before deductions for tax, national insurance, pension and student loans. The gross pay includes overtime, commission, bonuses, statutory payments and any other taxable income.

Net Pay – This is what nanny takes home in her pocket.

Tax – Deducted based on nanny’s tax code which determines nanny’s tax free allowance and then any earnings above the tax free allowance is deducted at 20%.

NI – National Insurance. There are 3 types of NI for PAYE.

Employees NI deducted from nanny’s gross wage at 12% on earnings above £166.00 per week.

Employer’s NI on top of nanny’s gross wage paid at 13.8% on earnings above £166.00 per week.

Class 1A NICS, this is a yearly payment for any benefits in kind nanny may have had for the previous tax year.

SMP – statutory maternity pay. Nanny is entitled to 39 paid weeks of leave providing she meets the criteria. Nanny is allowed a further 13 weeks unpaid

SPP – statutory paternity pay. Nanny entitled to 2 weeks of statutory pay.

SSP – statutory sick pay. Nanny will get SSP after 4 consecutive working days of sickness

P60 – Nanny will be given this form at the end of the tax year to show her annual pay, tax, NI and statutory payments, she then keeps this for her own records.

P45 – When nanny leaves your employment, a P45 will be issued with her leaving date, tax code, if a student loan has been deducted and total gross and tax to date in that tax year, she then gives this form to her next employer.