Assistant help and questions

[JCrakers]

Morning

I was speaking to a very good friend last night who works in a preschool at the moment but isn't enjoying it due to the fact she doesn't believe in some of the things they do there. She also mentioned she would like to earn a bit more money as she's only working there 1.5days a week.
She asked me about childminding, she was interested but thought she would struggle with some things. So I mentioned she may be able to come at work at my house, she would only want term time only between maybe 9am-4pm. I've trawled through the internet and this forum and gathered info. From what I have gathered I've found:

She or I would need to fill in a form from Ofsted and CRB (or whatever its called now)
She could be self employed and not employed by me so she could invoice me for payment??
We could agree days and hours between us and get a contract together
We could have up to 6 children under 5 between us before planning permission needs to be sought
She's level 3 qualified and holds a first Aid cert although only 1 of us needs to be first Aid so that's a bonus
I could leave her with the children but not for long periods. max 2hrs??
I would need to ask parents before taking her on to get their views

My only 2 concerns are:

Payment. What if we take on another 2/3 children but then overtime some of them leave and I'm left out of pocket?
At the moment I have 3 under 5 so if we took on 2 more children would I pay her for those 2 children per hour or a set wage? I charge £3.50 per hour so would I give her £7.00 per hour? Or would she have to pay something towards expenses? If so, how much?
What happens if she's ill? Would I be able to have the extra children without her? This is a big worry as I'm hardly ever ill and hate letting people down. I can't have her ringing in each week with an illness.

I always said I didn't want an assistant but it might work but quite well 2 or 3 days a week but I can't quite understand the money side of things and how people get it to work without being out of pocket themselves.
If she was employed then I would have to pay her minimum wage and holiday, sick pay which I don't get myself so wouldn't want to do that. I want it to be more of a laid back approach where I pay her according to how many children we have. If I only have 3 then I wouldn't need her. She could advertise too for extra children, sort of making her a childminder in her own right but working from my house but not having to go through the childminding route.

Any advice from someone who already has an assistant?

[Little_steps]

I'm looking into getting an assistant too so some good questions you've put there.

You will both need first aid if you plan to leave your assistant alone at any time, sorry but that's the only one I can help with.

X

[funemnx]

I have an assistant but only for the times I have enough children. For example I am very busy Mondays & Wednesdays and she helps during the hours I have too many children (8-3.30). The rest of the week I work on my own. I pay her a set hourly rate (£7.33). If she's ill I have another 2 registered assistants that I can call on if need be (they don't work with me anymore and are happy to help out). I don't think I could work without back-up in case of illness - families would have to be let down - not very professional...

The hours are flexible so if I don't need her, she doesn't work and doesn't get paid. So if some children left and I was within my ratios then I wouldn't need her to come in, the same goes for children being on holiday - if I'm within my ratios, I don't need her services. Financially it works for me because the children I have on the busy days also attend on other days during the week. Basically I'm able to offer the families who already attend more days than I could when working on my own.