A statement concerning a claim

A former house manager, placed by Larchcombe with a household on the Eastside from 2017 to 2024, has filed a claim against the household and against the agency concerning hours she says she spent on call while living in. Several households, a number of candidates and one newspaper have asked us about it.

We do not discuss placements, and we will not discuss this one, except to say the following.

Every live-in agreement we have arranged since 1987 sets out the hours of work, the hours of rest and the days off to which the member of staff is entitled, and the rate at which any further hours are to be paid. The Residence Code, which every member of staff we have placed since 2011 has read and signed, says that a member of staff who lives in “is part of the household’s night as well as its day.” That sentence has been read by some as a requirement to work at night. It is not, and has never been, and the next edition of the Code will say so in plainer words.

We are defending the claim. We will not comment further while it is before the court, and we would ask candidates and households alike not to draw conclusions about it from what they may read elsewhere.