Really confused about assistants

[dobby]

Hi all, I am hoping somebody can give me an idiots guide to employing an assistant :) I have read through alot of the posts and i find i am getting more not less confused :panic:

basically I am in the lucky postion of having five families that I work with across the week. Four of those five families are either having a second baby or baby has arrived and mum is on maternity leave. I have been told by all of them they want to keep exisiting child here and add sibling when maternity leave is up.

Its lovely to feel wanted - last year I lost alot of families through redundancy so this has boosted my confidence loads. BUT i have sat down with a 2011 and 2012 year planner and simply cannot fit them all in!!

Some days, if everyone had what they wanted there could be 6 or even 7 under 4s here, mostly under 3s so real things to consider such as walking abilities,naps etc.

Soo I am looking at pros and cons of employing an assistant. How does one start the process, apply to OFSTED first or find someobdy first? Where is best place to look? Do assistants need qualifications or experience?

I am completly confused as to how they get paid. It looks like self employed would be easier but do I need to pay higher than minimum wage to allow for this? I am in south London area, does anyone emply an assistant in this area and can tell me what they pay?

I have done recrutiment before so am not worried about interviewing and training, more the set up and wether there is another way of doing this?

Heeeelp!:eek:

[Mrs.L.C]

My Husband is my assistant. This works best as at the end of the day it all goes into the same pot

when I registered him as an assistant, I needed to put his name on the paper work incl the CRB so I would assume you would need to already have someone in mind.

I pay him a fixed salary a month and he is registered as self employed but if its for someone else they might want an hourly rate and would probably expect at least the min wage.

They will need to do a first aid course and only then can you leave them for short periods of time assuming Ofsted and Parents agree to them being left on their own

[Tigertots]

You are asking all the questions I need to know. I am thinking of having my daughter to work with me and we are not sure if its best to employ her as an assistant or as a childminder working along side eachother in my home

[Mrs.L.C]

The only benefit we found with registering OH as a childminder was he could still work if I couldnt and be on his own with the children for longer periods of time however this involved more costs eg double Ofsted fees and would mean double the inspection

We had a think about how we would work and we decided that we would both be taking the children to groups so therefore I would always be with him and that if I was too ill to work, then the whole setting should be closed anyway so we registered him as an assistant. Ofsted do the one inspection but like the assistant there so they can see how they work and ask them a few questions.

There is the risk with being an assistant only that Ofsted may not increase your numbers but I have only heard this happen when theres not been the space in the house therefore it wouldnt make a difference if they registered as themself

[rickysmiths]

Hi all, I am hoping somebody can give me an idiots guide to employing an assistant :) I have read through alot of the posts and i find i am getting more not less confused :panic:

basically I am in the lucky postion of having five families that I work with across the week. Four of those five families are either having a second baby or baby has arrived and mum is on maternity leave. I have been told by all of them they want to keep exisiting child here and add sibling when maternity leave is up.

Its lovely to feel wanted - last year I lost alot of families through redundancy so this has boosted my confidence loads. BUT i have sat down with a 2011 and 2012 year planner and simply cannot fit them all in!!

Some days, if everyone had what they wanted there could be 6 or even 7 under 4s here, mostly under 3s so real things to consider such as walking abilities,naps etc.

Soo I am looking at pros and cons of employing an assistant. How does one start the process, apply to OFSTED first or find someobdy first? Where is best place to look? Do assistants need qualifications or experience?

I am completly confused as to how they get paid. It looks like self employed would be easier but do I need to pay higher than minimum wage to allow for this? I am in south London area, does anyone emply an assistant in this area and can tell me what they pay?

I have done recrutiment before so am not worried about interviewing and training, more the set up and wether there is another way of doing this?

Heeeelp!:eek:


I would call the tax office to check. It is my understanding that if an assistant works over a certain number of hours in a week you have to employ them. It has been stated that if they are 'available for work' they can be self employed but I don't see how they can be if they are working for you full time. You pay their tax and NI and produce their payslip, you would have to pay the min wage, paid holiday , currently 25 days incl Bank Holidays, paid sick leave and maternity pay if that happened.

Which ever way, if you go over 6 under eights in your house you need to check with your local planning dept to see if you need to apply for planning permission to work with more than 6 under eights. This can cost upward of £350.

You need to have a back up plan to cover your sickness and theirs because although they will be able to be left for short times alone with the children they won't be able to work alone if you are ill for instance. Also cover for your assistants holiday if they want to take it at different times to you.

Also you need to consider the amount of room you have. To accomodate 2 adults and up to 7 under 3s. Do you have a sleeping area.

Sorry I don't meant to put a damper on it I looked into it last year and there is so much to consider. I decided not to go ahead.

[dobby]

Dont worry ricky, i need to consider everything and have told all the parents I cannot make any promises until have a clear idea as to implications.

daughter is no good as assistant as she is only 9 :) She probably would if I asked her as she loves me being a childminder lol!

Hubby earns more than me and I would probably end up strangling him so I wouldn't even consider him!

So would need to look elsewhere, have thought of a few people who might be interested but have experienced the "friends dont make good employees" dilemma before so would tread veery carefully on that one.

Interesting to hear about the over 6s issue. I am going to plot everyones requests out again tomorrow and look at requesting some move days to even up the numbers, but i will still be looking at 5 under 3s one or two days.

I have had several variations for four under 5s before for siblings but there has usually been a bigger age gap, i.e. a 4yo at pre school part of the day and a baby sister/brother so its looking at logisitcs of lots of little ones too

[retha]

I was in this same position just a few weeks ago.
I currently have 2 families and both of them had their second baby and said to me they don't want to loose me and want both siblings to continue coming to me now and after their maternity leave.
On top of this I also have a waiting list with 4 children interested in coming to me either from after Easter or from Sept. I get constant childcare requests and have to keep on saying no simply because I just don't have vacancies!

I wanted to employ assistant and had someone brilliant in mind, but the whole process turned out to be so involved that I decided to not go ahead and rather stick with what I currently have. Coming Sept I will maybe have 2 vacancies so hopefully my 2 families will be able to hold out until then for their siblings. I applied for variation for 2 days/week until then and it was accepted.

Def call your local tax office to make sure about employing assistants. I am also in London & when I called was told I have to register as employer no matter how little hours the person works! :mad: And just paying min payment is not enough in London...it will be a bit more! And you will need planning permission.
There is a lot to think about.

Good luck with everything, hope you manage to get it all figured out.

[funemnx]

A childminder I've just met employs an apprencice. She pays £2.50 per hour. I'm not sure how it works but it must be something a Development Officer or Ofsted have information on?

My assistant is my niece so I don't think I can help you much, sorry! Good luck! :thumbsup:

[Mrs.L.C]

Let us know what tax office say about paying an assistant. When we were choosing which route to go down we were told a fixed salary and him register as self employed would be ok but I do not require OH everyday even though he is available ever day

[dobby]

Thanks for all the info everyone. I am going to phone our early years team tomorrow to see what advice they can offer.

Have been working out where i can fit everyone in and it seems i can get it down to 5 children most days but I would probably need to employ somebody from checking the HMRC website.

I also spoke to DH about the impact of having that many small poeple here every day plus a "stranger" as he often leaves for work after 10 or works from home and he relaised that this was another factor to consider - our home would be very much a "childcare environment" during my working hours.

Soo much to consider - I think my head will explode soon!:rolleyes:

[rickysmiths]

Thanks for all the info everyone. I am going to phone our early years team tomorrow to see what advice they can offer.

Have been working out where i can fit everyone in and it seems i can get it down to 5 children most days but I would probably need to employ somebody from checking the HMRC website.

I also spoke to DH about the impact of having that many small poeple here every day plus a "stranger" as he often leaves for work after 10 or works from home and he relaised that this was another factor to consider - our home would be very much a "childcare environment" during my working hours.

Soo much to consider - I think my head will explode soon!:rolleyes:

Good Luck. I'm sure it will all work out for you.

[Pauline]

Also you need to consider the amount of room you have. To accomodate 2 adults and up to 7 under 3s. Do you have a sleeping area.

Unless it has changed recently, Ofsted will not allow you to have more than 6 in the early years group and of those no more than 2 can be under one year, when working together.

You can download a factsheet on numbers here:
Ofsted factsheet (http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Forms-and-guidance/Browse-all-by/Other/General/Factsheet-childcare-The-numbers-and-ages-of-children-that-childminders-may-care-for)

:)

[ryanna]

Unless it has changed recently, Ofsted will not allow you to have more than 6 in the early years group and of those no more than 2 can be under one year, when working together.

You can download a factsheet on numbers here:
Ofsted factsheet (http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Forms-and-guidance/Browse-all-by/Other/General/Factsheet-childcare-The-numbers-and-ages-of-children-that-childminders-may-care-for)

:)

I have a variation for 7 under 5's, no more than 2 under 1's when working with my assistant, BUT I can't have any more than 12 under 8 in total so if I have 7 under 3's I have to reduce my 5 to 8's by one to compensate, if that makes sense! Fine by me, with 7 under 5's in the house I wouldn't want 5 older ones as well anyway!! :panic: :D

[hollyberry]

Hi all

Interesting to read all the info re using assistants. What I can't work out though is how you make enough revenue when you have an assistant? If you charge £3.50 an hour for mindees and pay £2.50 an hour for the assistant does that really work out to be worthwhile???? I just can't seem to work this aspect of the assistant question out - am I just being thick and looking at it totally daftly? (this is highly likely to be the case!!!!).

[funemnx]

Hi all

Interesting to read all the info re using assistants. What I can't work out though is how you make enough revenue when you have an assistant? If you charge £3.50 an hour for mindees and pay £2.50 an hour for the assistant does that really work out to be worthwhile???? I just can't seem to work this aspect of the assistant question out - am I just being thick and looking at it totally daftly? (this is highly likely to be the case!!!!).

Basically, I work with an assistant because lots of my mums had 2nd babies at the same time - I dont make a lot of extra money working with an assistant, but I keep the families!

My assistant comes all day Monday and Tuesday and we have 5 under 5's between us. But on the other days I have a variation to 4 under 5's, working on my own, so although I pay my assistant £6.00 an hour (I charge 3.15 per child per hour), the fact that I can keep my families means I get paid quite well the other 3 days of the week, if that makes sense! As the older siblings become rising fives, I won't need an assistant at all and will be better off financially by the Autumn :thumbsup:

[sandy64]

the other option is to haveyour assistant self employed thats what i wil do read into it and makes things so much easier:)

[dobby]

Its funny,I was coming on to ask more advice and here is my original thread still going :)

Just to update, I have had one parent whose child came one day a week give notice which has eased the situation a bit in terms of spreading the children out. What this will now mean is 3 days a week I will have 4 under 5's which hopefully i will get a variation for. Then come January 2112, i will need an assistant for one day a week as I will be asking for a variation to have 5 under 5's .

All the changes are continuity of care as it is all new siblings. None of the [arents are removing their first child during maternty leave and in fact the older children may be at pre school until 3pm so it would only be after preschool and holiday care so more manageable for me.

So if I only have need of an assistant one day a week I can ask them to be self employed surely? They are available for work at other times?

What do you think folks?

[hollyberry]

What I found out about this when I was thinking of having a nanny as my childminder stopped childminding, is that if you go onto the internet and start looking this up, there is a calculator where you go through a series of questions about that person's 'employnment' and it tells you whether they would be classable as self employed or need to be employed. If the latter, there are firms that will do all the paperwork and ni and everything for you which you could look into if you didn't wish to employ them yourselves. Check out this page http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/paye/employees/start-leave/status.htm which explains and then this link http://search2.hmrc.gov.uk/kbroker/hmrc/contactus/search.ladv?sr=0&as=1&cs=ISO-8859-1&sc=hmrc&sf=&sm=0&nh=50&ha=34&tx0=941063&fl0=__dsid:&tx1=2037&raction=view which takes you to the online calculator to work it out. Hope that helps!!