Gordon Brown cleaning contract
was £6,577 over 26 months for two flats,
The girl who sometimes cleans for us gets £9 an hour - she does lots of odd jobs on the farm at usually just over minimum wage, but cleaning gets more even though our house must be less filthy than some of the farm jobs she does. Her mum has a cleaning business and charges closer to £12/hr. I presume the higher cost it's because all the customers live in rural areas which means longer travelling between jobs / higher transport costs.
To me £18 a week is great if it means I don't get hassled by my OH to do my portion of the cleaning. plus she does a much more thorough job than I can be bothered to do.
We had a 2 different cleaners in Northern Ireland when Jake and I had our house there. It was between £8 and £8.50 an hour but it was completely worth it. I would retreat into my office and work and when i came out my house was immaculate.
I think that £10 is probably the max i would have paid if i had needed to.
I pay about £9:00 an hour, which works out £36 per week for 4 hours work. Worth every penny because I come home to a clean house and all the ironing done. Plus it means my weekends are mine to enjoy without having to worry about the state of the house.
If the Prime minister did not pay a decent wage for his cleaner, he would then be accused of exploitation
I think I’d rather that than he do his own housework. After all, he’s supposed to be concentrating on affairs of state! The cleaner is the cheaper option by far if you look at hourly rates. After all, who else is going to do it?
If, that is, it’s allowed within the rules for expenses.
I worked as a cleaner in people's homes when I was a student. Back then I think I charged about £5 per hour, but that was fifteen years ago.
I think these days a thorough, fast-working, honest cleaner is worth £8 per hour at the absolute minimum, probably £9 or £10.
If a professional cleaner has built up a good enough reputation to charge £12 per hour (or more) and people pay it because they value her work and her attitude, then good on her. Just because it's considered menial work doesn't mean it should be badly paid. I hate that attitude. If someone is good at their job, reliable, polite, trustworthy and works hard, why shouldn't they earn good money?
It's very difficult to compare it with restaurant staff etc. Personally I think the minimum wage is an insult to anyone who works hard in any job - it doesn't matter what the work is.
However, if we are comparing then it's worth considering that a domestic cleaning job is not likely to be longer than 4 hours at a time (often only 2 hours) and you have to spend unpaid time travelling between clients during the day. You also don't get any pension, paid holiday or sick-pay - if you don't work, you don't earn.
I think the problem lies in the way ministers are paid. They supplement their salary with expense claims. I think their salary should be increased to a level that reflects the importance and responsibilities of the job , otherwise the best people may not opt to go into politics and then they should pay all domestic expenses out of their salary, then it would not matter to us how they spend their money.
Seems the average cleaner around Finchley gets £10 an hour cash although I know some Brazillians that clean for £5. I need a cleaner to clear up my garden after 4 months of doggy doings (kind of looks like a hot dog stall without the rolls). Wonder if an outside cleaner would be the same price as an in house one???
I didn’t miss the point at all, but was making one of my own. The thread was about cleaners, the initial post in this discussion was merely the amount of money this cleaner has been paid – not making a critical point about MPs expenses. The thread is entitled “how much is a cleaner worth?”, and this one is clearly being paid market rates. Philsmove made no reference as to whether it is appropriate that this can be claimed on expenses.
I agree. However, I’m not sure that this is going to overcome the problem altogether. When all this furore started up, I was listening to a discussion on radio 4, where they outlined why the system of MPs living expenses was set up in the first place. One example was a Scottish MP (can’t remember his name, sorry), who could not afford to keep his family in their home in his constituency and stay in London during the week to do his job as an MP – so spent every night that he needed to be in London on parliamentary business on the sleeper between London and Glasgow, as he couldn’t claim hotel expenses, but could claim travelling expenses.
Yes, you can pay the MPs what they are worth, but if it’s a flat rate for all, regardless of where they live, then you’re still going to have some feeling more hard done by than others, as those living in London/SE already are clearly going to incur far fewer expenses getting to their jobs than those who don’t. And if you want to compare this to the private sector, then most people chose to live reasonably near their main place of employment, and if they have to travel for work, then work pays – even if they are on massive salaries. MPs are in a very unusual position in that many of them will not live within a commutable distance of where they are obliged to be every day.
What I do find ludicrous, however, are the things that they are allowed to claim for and the fact that they don’t, apparently, have to submit receipts for expenses – again listening to radio 4 the Scottish MPs were pointing out how ridiculous this is, and how their expenses are transparent and that they are fully accountable as theirs are published on the web for all to see. I spent a short time as a PA at Deutsche Bank, and every last penny had to be accounted for by receipts, even for the most senior staff – no receipt, no expense claim. And the expenses were firmly capped too – hotels and flights had to be booked within company policies, there were strict limits on subsistence claims for food and drink as well as for entertainment. For anything claimed for client entertaining, the individuals present and their companies had to be named. For taxis between meetings, the meetings had to be stated and they had to match the calendar too. So if we are going to treat MPs salary and expense-wise as if they are in the private sector, then they should be made to jump through these kind of hoops too. And I can just imagine how popular that will be!
deleted wrong thread
a friend has just hired an Eastern European cleaner. It took her 5 hours to hoover the house. Turns out she was a Slovak.
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