Employment law

National Minimum Wage & The Working Time Regulations. These two important paragraphs of the legislation apply to all domestic staff employed in the UK. They affect the minimum legal amount of pay and of paid holiday entitlement of every employee.

National Minimum Wage (NMW)
The current NMW is:

• £3.40 per hour gross for employees aged between 16 and 17
• £4.60 per hour gross for employees aged between 18 and 21
• £5.52 per hour gross for employees aged 22 years and over

Please note that it is a criminal offence to pay below the NMW carrying a fine of up to £5,000 unless your employee lives as part of the household and is treated as a member of the family.

If your employee does live as part of the household and is not provided with separate accommodation, they are excluded from the NMW. For employers who provide separate accommodation for their employees there is an allowance of £30.10 per 7-day week, which can be offset against the NMW hourly rate.

As an employer you are required by law to give your employees regular payslips, which should show the gross wage and the tax and NI deducted to arrive at their net pay. To make sure that you are paying your employee at least the minimum wage, simply divide their gross weekly salary by the number of hours worked.

Holiday entitlement

From 1 October all employers are required to give at least 4 bank holidays as paid leave in addition to the 4 weeks. That means that all employees will now be entitled to 4.8 weeks holiday per year.

This entitlement begins from the very first day of employment but cannot be taken until it has been accrued (e.g. one day’s holiday after thirteen days work). The holiday entitlement will be on a pro-rata equivalent.

The additional 4 days do not necessarily have to be taken on the actual bank holidays and it is up to the employer to choose when the holiday should be taken. Employers whose employees do not accompany them on holidays may like to agree, when employment starts, that at least part of their employee's entitlement is to be taken when they themselves are on holiday.

In April 2009 legislation will change again and all employers will be required to give all 8 bank holidays as paid leave, bringing the total holiday entitlement up to 5.6 weeks.

In addition to holiday entitlement t he Working Time Regulations, the UK interpretation of the European Working Time Directive, also grants all employees the following statutory rights:

• Rest breaks
• Domestic employees are however exempt from the measures concerning working hours

Return to top