If you decide to use Direct Payments to employ a Personal Assistant, you will have legal responsibilities as an employer. It is up to you to comply with these responsibilities but there are many sources of help to advise you about being an employer and the legal responsibilities, some of these are listed below or you can find them on the Useful Contacts pages of this website. Your local Council will be able to give you advice and give you information about who can help you in your area.

In addition we have, with funding from Skills for Care, produced a booklet specifically for people who employ their own Personal Assistants.

The booklet gives advice from recruitment and interview to employment. It gives sample documents including blank advertisements, letters, job descriptions and employment contracts which you can download and use. These are just samples and can be added to or amended as necessary but please be aware that you must abide by employment laws. Details of these are in the booklet and explained in more details on this page.

We have split the booklet into 2 parts - to see or download the first section of the booklet giving advice on the basic issues and legalities of employing staff click here

To see or download all the samples of the documents and forms click here

or to see individual forms or samples click on the specific document listed below.

Sample job description and personal specification

Blank job description and personal specification

Sample job advert

Sample application form

Interview checklist and sample interview questions

Sample letter inviting people for an interview

Sample letter telling people they are not being invited to an interview

Sample letter asking for a reference

Sample letter offering job

Sample letter turning down applicant

List of documents to prove the legal right to work in the UK

Sample contract of employment

Safety in the home checklist

Sample risk assessment

Sample disciplinary form

Sample grievance procedure

What are my Legal Responsibilities as an Employer?

As an employer you must conform to all Employment laws.

These laws include:

• Providing Payroll services including paying wages, tax and National Insurance.
  

There is help for you in providing Payroll services. For more information on who can help you to provide Payroll services go to the Payroll Services page.

• You must give your employee a written document containing the main terms and conditions of their contract of employment. The Business Link website has an interactive tool to help you produce a Written Statement of Employment. Click here to go to the Business Link website.
  

• You must give your employee the legal amount of holidays and sick leave. ACAS can give you all the information you need regarding legal requirement of leave. You can call them on their helpline 0845 6070143 or click here to go to the page on leave time.
  

Business Link also advises on how to calculate holiday entitlement if you employ someone part way through the holiday year. Click here to go to the website.

• You must check the eligibility of the employee to work in this Country. To find out how to check that your selected applicant can legally work in the UK click here.

• You must make sure that you give your employee the legal amount of notice. Click here to go to Business Link for more information.

• You must have the appropriate insurance. Some household insurance policies include employer's liability as part of the cover.

If you need to purchase additional insurance, your local Council will fund this a part of your Direct Payments, Business Link has more information on Employer and public liability Insurance. To look at the information on the Business Link website click here.

It is advisable, once you have gone through the recruitment process and selected who you want to employ as your Personal Assistant, to have a CRB (Criminal records Bureau) check. To learn more about CRB click here to go to the CRB website.

 

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