Flexible working for those with parental responsibilities
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 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.
They can ask for:
- A change in the times worked
- A change in the number of hours worked.
- Home working.
The application must:
- Be in writing (which includes an email or fax) 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 yo 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, fax or email, written by the employee, 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:
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 the request can not be accepted.
If you turn down a request, 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 that procedure, or that your decision to reject the application for flexible working is based on incorrect facts.
Flexible working for carers
In April 2007, the right to apply for flexible working was extended to those with responsibility for caring for:
- A spouse, partner, civil partner or near relative, including step-relatives, relatives and adopted relatives; or
- Being none of the above, the person in need of care lives at the same address as the employee.
A person is an employee’s ‘partner’ if they are either living together as if they were husband and wife, or as if they were civil partners, even though not actually married or in a civil partnership.
A 'relative' means a mother, father, adopter, guardian, special guardian, parent-in-law, son, son-in-law, daughter, daughter-in-law, brother, brother-in-law, sister, sister-in-law, uncle, aunt or grandparent and step-parent, step-son, step-daughter, step-brother or step-sister. Half-blood relatives are also included. So are adoptive relationships and relationships which would have existed but for an adoption, i.e. an employee’s natural relatives.
Daughters-in-law and sons-in-law are not within the definition of a relative. The DTI say this is an error, that will be remedied “as soon as possible”.
A carer’s application is made in exactly the same way as a parent’s application except that, instead of confirming that the employee has or expects to have responsibility for the upbringing of a child, it will state that the employee has, or expects to have, responsibility for caring for an adult and is the spouse, partner, civil partner or relative of that adult or lives at the same address as that adult.
Employees are not legally obliged to provide proof or evidence of a caring relationship; that the adult in question requires any particular level of care or that the employee is personally required in order to deliver the care needed. However, you can ask for details of the type of care needed and who the care is for if that will help you understand the extent and effect of the request on the employee’s work.
Dealing with suspected abuse
It would be reasonable for you to ask for evidence of the relationship between the employee and the child, or adult being cared for, if you suspect the employee is abusing the right to request flexible working, perhaps with a view to your invoking the business’s disciplinary procedures. This could happen either when the request is made or once the employee has begun flexible working.
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.
Entitlement to parental leave is 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 one week, up to a maximum of four weeks per year.
