Childminder holidays

[seveber]

Hi,

I would like to get some guidance with regard to childminder holidays.

Do you pay the chilminder when he/she is on holiday? If you are unable to take your holiday at the same time, is it easy to find another chilminder?

Thanks,

[minder]

Depends what you agreed in your contract with the childminder.

Some charge nothing for their own, but full rate for parents taking holiday. Some charge half fee for their own and half fee for when parents take holiday. Some charge full fee for their own and full fee for parents.

Most childminders will work around when the parents take their holiday so you won't have to find anybody else but it might be difficult at short notice to find somebody with a space if you have to.

Maybe your childminder knows other childminders who may be able to help?

[seveber]

Thanks minder, half fee sounds fair, i need to further discuss this...

[standswithfist]

I think half fee sounds fair too but my childminder charges me for our holidays and her own holidays. So we have to work around her. If only having children was cheap or free!!!

[Bobbaz]

Sadly I think you might find that most nanny's get full pay for their holidays. My advice is to agree in advance how many days holiday you want to give your childminder and also what you want to do about bank holidays too! (and make sure you track them somewhere!) Then you pay her/him full pay for those days but anything over that would be unpaid. While you're agreeing this I would also check out what you'd like to do about sick pay as I also paid my nanny for sick days too (as long as it was within reason) but she would also try and get someone else to cover for her if poss (I was fortunate my Nanny's Sister and Mom were also nannys!) I seem to recall I gave 20 days plus bank hols (if they fell on the day she normally worked) but 2 weeks of her holiday would be agreed by us both so her holiday fell at the same time as we wanted to take our summer holiday.

[Jamma]

YOu're basically employing your childminder, as an employee he/she's entitled to paid holidays and bank holidays. If you can make his/her holidays fit with yours then obviously that's better but if the minder has more than just your child/children on their books then that's not necessarily going to work out is it?

[seveber]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to respond.

[littleEDfamily]

In most (all?) instances, you're not employing your childminder in the same way you employ a nanny, so none of the usual obligations around holidays apply. The fact that they work for multiple families in their own home, pay their own taxes, get their own registrations and insurance etc makes them much more of a contractor than an employee.

Like with any contract, you can come to pretty much any arrangement you like, including childminders charging parents for when they are on holiday (most nurseries charge parents when they are closed, after all), but there's still something that feels a bit cheeky about it in my opinion! Having said that, if childminders don't charge you for their holiday time, they would probably just bake the cost into their hourly/ day rate so you'd end up paying anyway. Probably more important to make sure they provide you with maximum notice on their planned holidays so you can co-ordinate yours wherever possible.

Jamma Wrote:

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> YOu're basically employing your childminder, as an

> employee he/she's entitled to paid holidays and

> bank holidays. If you can make his/her holidays

> fit with yours then obviously that's better but if

> the minder has more than just your child/children

> on their books then that's not necessarily going

> to work out is it?