Winter Economy Plan

Our partners at www.PayrollForNannies.co.uk  provide payroll advice for parents and nannies and have provided this content. For more advice and support please get in touch with them.

In an unprecedented move, the government has cancelled the Autumn Budget which had been tipped to include substantial tax increases for the affluent in favour of announcing a raft of measures to support jobs this winter in the wake of a double blow from COVID-19 and Brexit.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak announced today his Winter Economy Plan, which seems to have been inspired by similar programs in other European countries.

The current Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) will be replaced with a new Job Support Scheme (JSS)

The JSS is intended to ‘directly support’ wages of staff working at least a third of their regular hours after the CJRS scheme ends as planned at the end of October.  It will start in November 2020 and end in April 2021.

Employers will pay their staff normally for hours they work. Then, they will be paid two-thirds of their pay for the remaining hours (with the employer and the government paying one-third each). So people will still see lower take-home pay – we have prepared the table below.





Normal Hours




JSS Hours




Take home percentage of contracted hours




33%




67%




77%




35%




65%




78%




40%




60%




80%




45%




55%




81%




50%




50%




83%




55%




45%




85%




60%




40%




86%




65%




35%




88%




70%




30%




90%




75%




25%




92%




80%




20%




93%




85%




15%




95%




90%




10%




97%




95%




5%




98%

The level of grant will be calculated based on employee’s usual salary, capped at £697.92 per month. The employer will be reimbursed in arrears for the government contribution. The relevant employee(s) must not be on a redundancy notice.

The JSS is intended to protect viable jobs over next six months after the furlough scheme ends in October.

All small and medium-sized firms with a UK PAYE scheme and UK bank account are eligible – but large firms are only eligible if their turnover has fallen in the pandemic and can document this..  The JSS is open to firms who have not used CJRS.

It is designed to sit alongside the Jobs Retention Bonus and businesses can benefit from both schemes in order to help protect jobs.

The Job Retention Bonus is a one-off payment to employers of £1,000 for every employee who they previously claimed for under the scheme, and who remains continuously employed through to 31 January 2021. Eligible employees must earn at least £520 a month on average between the 1 November 2020 and 31 January 2021. Employers will be able to claim the Job Retention Bonus after they have filed PAYE for January and payments will be made to employers from February 2021.

Holiday Allowance

A full time nanny is entitled to 28 days holiday (5.6 weeks) which includes bank holidays. Employers are entitled to choose all the dates of holiday nanny should take, but in practice nanny normally chooses 2 weeks while the employer chooses the other 2 weeks.

In your contract with nanny, make sure you ask for notice for nanny’s proposed holiday this will allow you to find alternative childcare. Some employers ask for at least 4 weeks notice.

We would recommend you keep note of holiday taken paid or unpaid, just in case nanny leaves part way through the year and has over taken on holiday. This way any unpaid or over paid holiday can be paid/deducted in her final payslip.

If nanny works more than 5 days a week, their holiday entitlement is capped at 28 days. It is not a problem if you agree more day’s holiday with nanny – this could be a condition of her working for over a stated amount of time.

If nanny is part time, she is entitled to annual leave (28 days including bank holidays), but pro-rated. So if nanny works 2 days a week, her holiday allowance is calculated:

2 days a week x 5.6 annual holiday allowance = 11.20 days holiday.

You must not round the holiday allowance down to 11, but can round it up to 11.5 days.

If nanny works different hours each week, you calculate her holiday pay by averaging her last 12 weeks worked hours then multiply it by 5.6, this then gives you her holiday entitlement in hours for the year and when she has a day’s holiday or was due to work on a public holiday, whatever hours she was scheduled to work that day are then deducted from her overall annual entitlement.

For more advice and support on this or any other payroll related matter please contact our recommended partners Payroll for Nannies https://www.payrollfornannies.co.uk/

New morning routines

Nothing upsets an established routine as much as the arrival of September. Whether it’s new activities, nursery runs, schools runs or just the end of everyone running on summer holiday time, September is often a shock to the system. The key to getting past this is planning ahead and trying to shift everyone gently onto the new time by doing a couple of practice runs. Before nannies do this they need to check it out with the parents – after all, there’s still a weekend to go and your employers might appreciate a bit of warning about the early start.

The morning starts before you’ve even gone to sleep. Late bedtimes have a huge knock on effect, and late bedtimes can be caused by late dinner, caused by a big day out which started late because you didn’t get out the house before 10…..and so on. By looking ahead to the last few days before you actually need to get up and out by 8.30  you can avoid a late night and give yourself a better chance of being on time in the morning. If, in September, it’s dinner at 5.30 and bed by 7 that needs to start around now, especially if you’re moving from dinner at 7 and bed at 8.30! Again a nanny needs to move carefully because the summer evenings are a great opportunity for parents to eat with their children and spend some time with them after they come home from work so open communication is important.

An earlier bedtime should lead to getting up earlier in the morning but you might need to encourage your new morning routine along by getting everyone up that bit earlier too. And once they’re up follow your new routine step-by-step and try to time it. That’s not to say you can no longer do complicated holiday breakfasts, of course you can but just be aware of the difference in time between preparing and eating bacon and eggs and preparing and eating a bowl of porridge.

Now is also the time to experiment with time-saving ideas for the morning. How much of tomorrow’s picnic lunch can you prepare while you cook dinner? Can you cut up some fruit ready for breakfast too? Even if you used to do that in July, chances are you’re out of the habit now and a new morning routine is as much about you as the children!

Other simple time-saving tricks include laying out clothes and bags the night before so you don’t have to run around in the morning and restocking the nappy bag when you come in rather than just before you need to go out.

“Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today” is definitely a maxim to live by.

Finally don’t underestimate the impact of a new route in the morning. Walk, catch the bus or train, or drive if that’s that you’ll be doing, at least once beforehand, especially if it’s a new or unfamiliar area. Make it into a fun game by creating a special bingo or I-spy game for  older children. If you’re starting new baby activities check out the location, and parking nearby if you need to, so you don’t turn up late for the first session.

If you have any more great tips for setting up a new morning routine then let us know!

Job Retention Bonus


A one-off payment of £1,000 will be made to UK employers for every furloughed employee who remains continuously employed through to the end of January 2021. Employees must earn above the Lower Earnings Limit (£520 per month) on average between the end of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme at the end of October 2020 and the end of January 2021. Payments will be made from February 2021.

This bonus will be available to any employer who has furloughed an employee, even if just for the minimum three week period.

For more advice and support about Coronavirus and how it might affect employment or any other pay related issues please get in touch.