Employment Solicitors

With two fathers of young children in charge of the new coalition government, it is perhaps unsurprising that fathers’ rights to leave from work and flexible working to care for their children are hot topics.

The current rights together with an imminent right to additional paternity leave were implemented by the outgoing Labour administration. The new coalition government promises to be family friendly but it is difficult to reconcile this with the Conservative’s promised “one-in one-out” policy on regulation for businesses.

There is a great deal of evidence that fathers do not take up their rights to leave or flexible working. This is hardly surprising when men still earn significantly more on average than women: many families cannot afford to have the breadwinner give up work. Some question at to why new rights are introduced when existing ones are not exercised.

Presently, fathers have the right to take 2 weeks’ paternity leave provided that they have been employed for 26 weeks in the 14th week before the baby is due, paid at the statutory rate (currently £124.88 or 90% of earnings if lower). For babies born after 3 April 2011, fathers will become entitled to up to 26 weeks Additional Paternity Leave, provided the mother has returned to work. The father will be entitled to Additional Paternity Pay (again at the statutory rate) if the leave falls within the period that the mother would have been entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay.

Ordinary Paternity Leave must be taken within 56 days of the baby’s birth. Additional Paternity Leave cannot start until 20 weeks after the baby’s birth and must end once the baby is 12 months old. There are similar rights to fathers adopting children.

Fathers may also take up to 13 weeks’ unpaid parental leave before their child is 5 years old (or 18 years old if the child is disabled) provided they have been employed for 12 months. Again parental leave must be taken in multiples of complete weeks and a maximum of 4 weeks can be taken in any one year. Employers have the right to postpone the paternity leave except where the employee wishes to take it immediately after the birth of the child.

Fathers also have the right to request flexible working. However employers can refuse the request for a good business reason, such as an inability to reorganise work amongst other employees. Again, parents must have been employed for 26 weeks before a request can be made and can only make one request per year.

Parents can request a change to the number of hours they work, the times at which they work those hours or the location (perhaps to work from home).

It is important to remember that men as well as women are protected by the Sex Discrimination Act. Therefore, if women in an organisation are routinely granted flexible working to care for their children but a father is not, he would have a Sex Discrimination claim.