UK: What Family-Friendly Employment Rights Do Employees Have?

Starting a family is an exciting time in a person’s life. However, it can also be daunting, particularly when you are trying to juggle family life with working life. There are though a number of rights in the U.K. that are afforded to employees in order to help them balance their working life with the requirements of bringing up a child. Such rights are continually being varied in line with new working practices and changes to the modern-day family.

Maternity Leave and Pay

All employees, regardless of how long they have worked for their employer, are entitled to maternity leave. Ordinary maternity leave (OML) lasts for 26 weeks, including two weeks of compulsory maternity leave, which the employee must take. Certain notification requirements must be met in order to enjoy the right. If an employee qualifies for OML, they will also qualify for additional maternity leave (AML), which lasts for a further 26 weeks.

An employee is not, unless their contract provides otherwise, entitled to their normal rate of pay during OML or AML and instead may be eligible for statutory maternity pay (SMP) for a period of 39 weeks in total. During the first six weeks of maternity leave the employee is entitled to the “earnings-related rate,” which is 90 percent of her normal weekly earnings. For the remaining 33 weeks, the employee would receive the “prescribed rate,” which is the lesser of 90 percent of her average earnings and 184.03 pounds (the current SMP rate).

In addition to the above rights, pregnant employees have the right to take paid time off to attend prenatal care classes. Qualifying employees and workers are able to accompany the mother to some prenatal care appointments. There is also the right to take adoption leave, in certain circumstances.

Paternity Leave and Pay

Paternity leave is available to employees with 26 weeks service either, for birth and surrogacy cases, ending with the week immediately prior to the 14th week before the child’s expected week of childbirth (EWC); or, for adoption cases, ending with the week in which the child’s adopter is notified they have been matched with a child.

For children whose EWC begins after April 6 and adopted children whose placement is on or after April 6, an employee may choose to take a single period of leave of either one or two weeks, or two non-consecutive period of leave of a week each. The leave must usually be taken between the date of birth of the child or the date of placement in adoption, and the 52 weeks after that date.

The employee may also be eligible to receive statutory paternity pay which is the lesser of 90% of their average weekly earnings and 184.03 pounds (the current statutory paternity pay rate).

Parental Leave

This allows employees to take unpaid time off from work to care for their child or make arrangements for the child’s well-being. Parents can take up to 18 weeks (per child) off work, provided that the child is under 18. In addition, the employee must have been working for their employer for at least a year before making a request to take parental leave.

The employee must give their employer at least 21 days’ notice of their wish to take parental leave. The statutory scheme only allows an employee to take leave in blocks of one week and up to a maximum of four weeks’ parental leave can be taken in any one year. However, this default position can be amended by agreement between the employer and employee to allow the employee to take parental leave in blocks of less than a week. The employer is entitled to postpone the taking of leave for up to six months, where the employee’s absence is likely to harm the business.

Adoption Leave and Pay

Adoption leave operates in much the same way as maternity leave and in the event that the conditions are met, an employee adopting a child will benefit from Statutory Adoption Pay. This is paid for 39 weeks.

Shared Parental Leave

Shared parental leave (SPL) is available to eligible parents where their baby was due to be born on or after April 5, 2015, or for parents of children who were due to be placed for adoption on or after April 5, 2015. This right is unrelated to and does not affect Parental Leave (referred to above).

A mother or primary adopter is entitled to 52 weeks of maternity/adoption leave. SPL allows the mother or primary adopter to give notice to bring that leave to an end early and share what would have been the remainder of the maternity/adoption leave with the child’s father or the mother’s husband or civil partner or partner; or, in the case of adoption, the secondary adopter (the “other parent”).

The mother’s partner for these purposes is a person (whether of a different sex or the same sex) who lives with the mother and with the child in an enduring family relationship but is not the mother’s child, parent, grandchild, grandparent, sibling, aunt, uncle, niece or nephew.

A mother must still take her two weeks compulsory maternity leave and the primary adopter must similarly take two weeks’ adoption leave. The other parent who has caring responsibilities for the child is entitled to take their two weeks’ ordinary paternity leave. However, the other parent must take their paternity leave prior to any SPL as otherwise they will lose their entitlement to paternity leave.

There are various qualification requirements and shared parental pay is available.

Time Off for Dependents

Employees are able to take a reasonable amount of unpaid time off in the event of an emergency or if something unexpected occurs, such as if an employee’s child care falls through. All employees are entitled to this time off, regardless of how long they have worked for their employer. The situation must involve a dependent who, in addition to a child, may be the employee’s spouse, civil partner, parent or a person living in the same household who is not their employee, tenant, lodger or boarder. If the employee was aware of the event in advance, they are not generally entitled to exercise this right.

Flexible Working

The right to request flexible working is available to all employees. From April 6, the right to request flexible working becomes a day one right with no service requirement. Employees may make two flexible working requests in any 12-month period rather than one and requests must (in the absence of an agreed extension) be dealt with by the employer within two months of receipt rather than three. Employees are also no longer required to explain the impact their request may have on the employer’s business, and how that may be dealt with. Employers cannot refuse a request without first consulting with the employee.

The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service has produced a Code of Practice on handling in a reasonable manner requests to work flexibly. Employers should follow the Code as far as possible when dealing with flexible working requests as Employment Tribunals must take it into consideration when deciding whether a request was handled reasonably.

An employer may only refuse a request for one the following prescribed reasons:

• The burden of additional costs.
• The detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand.
• The inability to reorganize work among existing staff.
• The inability to recruit additional staff.
• The detrimental impact on quality.
• The detrimental impact on performance.
• The insufficiency of work during the periods that the employee proposes to work.
• Planned structural changes.

The main risk for employers is the possibility of a discrimination claim arising out of a refusal to grant a flexible working request.

Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay

The Parental Bereavement (Pay and Leave) Act 2018 entitles employees who find themselves in the tragic situation of having lost a child under the age of 18 to have two weeks’ bereavement leave and, for those with the necessary 26 weeks qualifying service, paid leave. The leave can be taken as one two-week period, two separate periods of one week, or as one single week. The leave can start on or after the date of the death or still birth, and must finish within 56 weeks of the death or still birth.

Carer’s Leave

Carer’s leave (without pay) is a flexible entitlement to one week’s unpaid leave for employees providing or arranging care for a dependent with a long-term care need. This is a day-one right with no need for qualifying service. The leave may be taken, subject to notice requirements, as half or full days up to and including a block of a whole week at once. Employers can postpone, but not refuse, a request for carer’s leave, but any alternative dates must be no later than one month after the earliest date included in the original request. Employees are protected from detriment and dismissal because they take or seek to take carer’s leave, or the employer believes they are likely to do so.

Innes Clark is an attorney with Morton Fraser MacRoberts in Edinburgh, Scotland. © 2024 Morton Fraser MacRoberts. All rights reserved. Reposted with permission of Lexology.