Flexible working
Any employee with parental responsibility for a child under six or a disabled child under 18 has the right to apply to you to work flexibly, provided that they have the qualifying length of service (26 continuous weeks) and have not made another application within the preceding 12 months. If you agree, the new arrangements continue even after your employee’s child reaches six or 18. You can agree a trial period.
Applicants can be biological parents, adopters, foster parents and legal guardians. They can also be spouses or same-sex partners of any of the above, if they have parental responsibility for the child. (From April 2007, these rights will also extend to carers who care for adults such as relatives, partners and people living with them.)
They can ask for:
The application must:
Be in writing and dated
Say it is being made under the statutory right to apply for flexible working.
State the employee/child relationship
State the employee’s proposal for flexible working, their view of the effect it will have on your business, and their proposals for dealing with this.
·State a reasonable, suggested start date for flexible working (so you have time to consider and implement the request – probably three to four months).
State whether any previous request has been made and when.
Some employers provide a standard form, but the application can still be made either by letter or email in any event.
If you agree the request, you reply within 28 days saying you will implement the new arrangements as agreed. You can set out the start date and any other key terms of the agreement.
If you don’t agree the request, you must meet with your employee within 28 days of the application to discuss any difficulties with, and possible alternatives to, flexible working. The employee may bring a work colleague.
You must then write to your employee within 14 days of the meeting, setting out new working arrangements or giving reasons why you are refusing the request. If you refuse, you must explain the appeals procedure.
You can only refuse flexible working requests if:
They create additional costs.
They affect ability to meet customer needs.
You can’t reorganise work among existing staff.
You can’t recruit additional staff.
It would affect quality.
It would affect performance.
There isn’t enough work during the time the employee proposes.
It would prevent planned structural changes.
Your employee can appeal within 14 days of receiving the decision. You must then hold an appeal meeting within 14 days. You then have a further 14 days within which you must either accept the appeal or give reasons why you are turning the request down.
If you turn a request down, the employee may bring an internal grievance and/or make a claim against you in an Employment Tribunal on the grounds that you have failed to comply with the procedure, or that your decision to reject the application for flexible working is based on incorrect facts.
Parental leave
Any employee who has at least one year’s service with an employer is also entitled to take up to 13 weeks’ unpaid parental leave for the purpose of caring for a child. Parental leave may be taken until the child’s 5th birthday or, in the case of an adopted child, until five years after the placement of the child. In the case of a disabled child, an employee may take up to 18 weeks’ parental leave at any time until the child’s 18th birthday.
The parent must have parental responsibility for the child, and must give you 21 days’ notice, stating the dates the parental leave will begin and end.
The 13 weeks is a total entitlement to leave, not an annual entitlement, and is therefore calculated by reference to all employment with all employers. So when you are taking on new employees, it is advisable to check with their previous employers as to how much parental leave, if any, they have taken.
Parental leave may be taken in blocks or multiples of a week, up to a maximum of four weeks per year.
If in doubt, take legal advice.
