The Residence Code, fifth edition

The fifth edition of the Residence Code takes effect on April 1, and every member of staff we place will be asked to read and sign it before then, or at the start of their placement if it begins later. It is published here, as every edition has been.

The Code was first written in 2011, by Joan Rendle and me, because we found that we were explaining the same things to every new member of staff and would rather explain them once, carefully, in writing. It has been revised in 2014, 2018 and 2022. It is not a contract. It is a description of how the staff we place conduct themselves in a private residence, and of what the households we act for may expect of them.

What has changed

Night hours. The sentence that said a member of staff who lives in “is part of the household’s night as well as its day” has gone. In its place is a paragraph that says what it always meant: that a member of staff who lives in may be called on outside their hours in an emergency, that such calls are recorded, and that they are paid.

Telephones. Section 6 now says plainly what households have long asked for and many house managers already did: where a household requires it, staff hand their personal telephones to the house manager at the start of their duty hours, and collect them at the end. The house manager keeps a number at which staff can always be reached by their own families.

Assistants and recordings. Staff may not use voice assistants, recording apps or note-taking software of any kind in the course of their work in a residence. This is new, and it is the change candidates ask about most.

What has not

Everything else. Discretion, punctuality, presentation, the confidentiality agreement and its term, the rule on photographs, the rule on visitors and the rule that we would rather be told than find out. The Code is a little shorter than it was, which nobody has ever said of a fifth edition of anything.