Help with Government funded course and refusal to give certificate.

peterwalkley · 19 Mar 2018 at 16:25

If I remember correctly, there are limits on how many children she can look after based on their age. We used a childminder when ours were younger and the rules she had to operate under were:

Registered childminders can look after up to six children up to the age of eight. Of these, a maximum of three can be under fives and a single childminder can only have one child under one year old. This ratio includes the childminder's own children if they are under age eight.

I appreciate the rules may have changed: but it smells like she's about to be ripped off big time by that contract wording above.

dowie · 19 Mar 2018 at 16:44

I think it smells more like she's worrying over nothing. They're surely going to aim to give her up to the max no of children as often as possible as they're a profit making business?

NMW is calculated across the month as a whole isn't it? So having some quiet periods where there are fewer than 3 isn't necessarily an issue if there are other periods with > 3 children.

They're still legally obliged to pay her NMW so would have to top up her pay at month end if they had undersupplied her with kids.

sanaxe1 · 19 Mar 2018 at 18:04

dowie said:
I think it smells more like she's worrying over nothing. They're surely going to aim to give her up to the max no of children as often as possible as they're a profit making business?

NMW is calculated across the month as a whole isn't it? So having some quiet periods where there are fewer than 3 isn't necessarily an issue if there are other periods with > 3 children.

They're still legally obliged to pay her NMW so would have to top up her pay at month end if they had undersupplied her with kids.

From what I understand they are first and foremost a training company looking to branch out .This is a pilot scheme which they have received funding from the job centre. They currently have 0 children ready to place with any of the 3 new trainees in our area, it will obviously take time to find these children so there is no knowing how long it could be until they have found 3 children for each of the 3 new workers. On the next page of the image i uploaded it says " ideal to have 3 children at all times but not realistic" They have specificity said that the wage would not be topped up to minimum wage as the new workers would have "no incentive to take on more than 1 child as they would be paid the same if it was 1 child or 3 children". But there would be a "wage slope" were the wage goes up if my sister finds more children. It really makes no sense hence why my sisters doesn't want to work for them she just wants the certificate needed so she can go somewhere else.

dowie · 19 Mar 2018 at 18:20

sanaxe1 said:
From what I understand they are first and foremost a training company looking to branch out .This is a pilot scheme which they have received funding from the job centre. They currently have 0 children ready to place with any of the 3 new trainees in our area, it will obviously take time to find these children so there is no knowing how long it could be until they have found 3 children for each of the 3 new workers. On the next page of the image i uploaded it says " ideal to have 3 children at all times but not realistic" They have specificity said that the wage would not be topped up to minimum wage as the new workers would have "no incentive to take on more than 1 child as they would be paid the same if it was 1 child or 3 children". But there would be a "wage slope" were the wage goes up if my sister finds more children. It really makes no sense hence why my sisters doesn't want to work for them she just wants the certificate needed so she can go somewhere else.

So just say yes and get the certificate, I'm not sure why you're making it hard... if they've got no children to place with her then she's got no work to do for them and she's in the same situation she's in already with no work, albeit she's got the certificate and can apply for other jobs if they still don't send her any kids to look after.

If they do have children to place with her and they don't meet NMW at the end of the month then they're breaking the law and she can get NMW from them by reporting them and has an easy way to get out of her contract/get a new job with the certificate she wanted.

I do wonder though if there is something else you've not told us though re:

They have specificity said that the wage would not be topped up to minimum wage as the new workers would have "no incentive to take on more than 1 child

Is it up to her to source the children/parents herself - surely they handle that for her else she might as well be self employed and running her own childcare business?

Otherwise if they place the children with her then that makes no sense, there surely doesn't need to be an incentive - she's an employee and they send her the customers no?

Dis86 · 19 Mar 2018 at 18:21

What have the job centre said?

Haggisman · 19 Mar 2018 at 20:38

Add a section redefining 1 childcare pound as £100, sign, and return

muon · 19 Mar 2018 at 21:50

If it will average out at £x which wil be higher than minimum wage, then why not just pay that average?

dowie · 19 Mar 2018 at 21:56

muon said:
If it will average out at £x wnhich wil be higher than minimum wage, then why not just pay that average?

I guess they're just passing on the risk... though because of that it wouldn't make sense to carry that risk and pay the same average but rather if they were to pay a flat rate it would (if they were sensible) be adjusted down slightly.

There is of course the argument that if one person regularly has 5-6 kids they'd then be doing more work for the same amount of money as someone who only regularly has 3-4 say.

muon · 19 Mar 2018 at 22:37

dowie said:
I guess they're just passing on the risk... though because of that it wouldn't make sense to carry that risk and pay the same average but rather if they were to pay a flat rate it would (if they were sensible) be adjusted down slightly.

There is of course the argument that if one person regularly has 5-6 kids they'd then be doing more work for the same amount of money as someone who only regularly has 3-4 say.

Doesn't make sense. If they employ 20 people the risk is far lower for them, than an individual person who could get badly screwed.

I think they know they will struggle to average out at the NMW as they probably overemploy people for maximum area coverage. They can't be bothered to manage the number of people they employ and hope it corrects itself through supply and demand.

By paying in terms of child hours, their margin remains the same no matter what.

dowie · 19 Mar 2018 at 22:49

muon said:
By paying in terms of child hours, their margin remains the same no matter what.

yup indeed, I'm not sure what doesn't make sense re: my previous post? They've simply passed on the risk to the carers but on the other hand the carers who do end up looking after more kids in any period (thus have more work to do) will be compensated more for that.

muon · 19 Mar 2018 at 22:57

I don't think it is about risk. They know it averages out at below NMW across all employees.

They have managed to keep their margin the same when it happens.

Werewolf · 19 Mar 2018 at 23:03

muon said:
I don't think it is about risk. They know it averages out at below NMW across all employees.

They have managed to keep their margin the same when it happens.

This.

I would be reporting it to HMRC or ACAS, as it doesn't matter what "childcare hours" are, it matters what the "clock hours" are, they can't impose a condition that potentially reduces the hourly wage to below that which is legally required, and the only reason they would be talking about their definition of an hour is because they expect to be paying less, they wouldn't be doing it if they expected the "childcare hours" to work out as costing them more.

It's basically the same as the likes of Sports Direct requiring staff to spend time being searched before leaving the warehouses but not including it in the employees hours for wage consideration.

dowie · 19 Mar 2018 at 23:19

muon said:
I don't think it is about risk. They know it averages out at below NMW across all employees.

They have managed to keep their margin the same when it happens.

If that is the case then they're acting illegally and she can report them/get the minimum wage paid regardless for the hours she put in and likely get out of whatever contract she'd agreed with them... plus she'll have the certificate by then.