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Our employment law solicitors are specialists in advising on your pregnancy and maternity rights. New, and soon to be, mothers have a number of rights to help them adjust to life with a new born baby, including:
- Paid time off for antenatal appointments.
- Health and safety protection while pregnant and/or breastfeeding.
- All new mothers are required to take a period of compulsory maternity leave for 2 weeks following the birth of their child.
- Up to 52 weeks’ maternity leave (26 weeks ordinary maternity leave and 26 weeks additional maternity leave).
- Statutory maternity pay is paid at 90% of average earnings for the first six weeks and then a flat rate for the remaining 33 weeks. The flat rate is £140.98 per week from 2 April 2017.
- Those who do not qualify for Statutory Maternity Pay may receive Maternity Allowance at a flat rate for the 39-week pay period.
- Rights to the benefits of all terms and conditions of employment whilst exercising her rights to maternity leave.
- Holiday entitlements continue to accrue whilst on maternity leave.
- The right to return to the same job at the end of the maternity leave.
- Priority for alternative employment when a redundancy situation arises during maternity leave.
- The right to request flexible working conditions on return to work.
- Protection from dismissal, detriment or discrimination by reason of pregnancy or maternity leave.
- Eligible parents caring for a child under the age of 5 years, can take unpaid leave for up to 4 weeks per year (up to a total of 18 weeks overall) to care for their child. The leave must be taken in whole weeks.
Paternity Rights
Our employment law solicitors are specialists in advising on your paternity rights.
New, and soon to be, fathers have a number of rights to help them adjust to life with a new born baby, including:
- If there is a qualifying relationship with the baby’s mother, the father will be entitled to time off work to accompany the mother at antenatal appointments. The maximum time off work is 6.5 hours on a maximum of two occasions.
- Ordinary paternity leave: Eligible fathers have been entitled to take either one whole week or two consecutive weeks’ ordinary paternity leave within 56 days of a child’s birth or placement for adoption.
- The first two weeks of ordinary paternity leave is paid at the lowest of at £140.98 or 90% of normal weekly earnings.
- The right to return to work at the end of the paternity leave.
- The right to submit a request for flexible working arrangements.
- Protection from detrimental treatment or dismissal as a result of seeking to take or taking paternity leave.
- Eligible parents caring for a child under the age of 5 years, can take unpaid leave for up to 4 weeks per year (up to a total of 18 weeks overall) to care for their child. The leave must be taken in whole weeks.
If you have any concerns around your maternity or paternity rights or how you are being treated, we are here for you.
Our Employment Advice Services
Our specialist Employment solicitors can assist you by: –
- Advising you on your eligibility, rights and the legal procedures that you must follow,
- Assisting you in creating formal proposals for a return to work or flexible working,
- Helping you to prepare for any formal meeting, and
- Advising you on how to best deal with any navigate any issues that arise, including pursuing grievances or lodging a claim in the Employment Tribunal.
Adoption Rights
Our Employment Law Solicitors are specialists in advising on your adoption rights.
Providing that you qualify for the rights, you may have rights to:-
- Paid time off: Right to have paid time off work to attend meetings in advance of a child being placed with them for adoption. The main adopter can take paid time off on a maximum of five occasions and the joint adopter can take unpaid time off on two occasions. The maximum time off during working hours is 6.5 hours.
- Leave: Up to 52 weeks’ statutory adoption leave;
- Pay: 90% of normal weekly earnings for the first six weeks and the remaining 33 weeks is paid at £140.98 from 2 April 2017.
- Parental leave: Eligible parents caring for a child under the age of 5 years, can take unpaid leave for up to 4 weeks per year (up to a total of 18 weeks overall) to care for their child. The leave must be taken in whole weeks.
If your employer is refusing you leave when adopting children, you have grounds for a case.
Flexible Working
Our Employment Law Solicitors are specialists in advising on flexible working arrangements.
Flexible working relates to the way in which a business lets its employees work; including hours of work, pattern of working and place of work. There are many forms of flexible working including home-working, part-time working, flexitime, shift working and job sharing.
Since 30 June 2014, the right to request flexible working has been extended to all employees (including mothers, fathers and adoptive parents).
All employees are entitled to make a request for flexible working arrangements provided that:
- They have at least 26 weeks’ service; and
- They have not made a flexible working request within the preceding 12 months.
The prescriptive statutory procedure requires the employer to consider the request in a reasonable manner.
The employer will need to notify the employee of its decision within three months, unless an extension is agreed with the employee. The request can be treated as withdrawn if the employee, without good reason, fails to attend two consecutive meetings to discuss the request or an appeal.
The employee may make a claim to the Employment Tribunal if the employer wrongly treats the request as withdrawn or if the employer’s decision is not made within 3 months. The claim must be brought within three months of the date on which the application is treated as withdrawn or the final decision is communicated.
ACAS has now published its final draft Code of Practice for handling flexible working requests. ACAS has also published a good practice guide to supplement the Code. These two documents can provide good guidance to an employee on how their employers should be handling their flexible working request.
Shared Parental Leave
Our Employment Law Solicitors are specialists in advising on Shared Parental Leave.
The system of Shared Parental Leave has been in place since April 2015. Employees who are parents (whether by birth or adoption), can take Shared Parental Leave in the first year of their child’s life or in the first year after their child’s placement for adoption.
Parents will not be obliged to take Shared Parental Leave. The default position on the birth of a child will be that the mother will take up to 52 weeks of maternity leave (39 weeks paid). The default position on the adoption of a child will be that the primary adopter will be entitled to 52 weeks of adoption leave (39 weeks paid).
Additional paternity leave and pay will not be available in respect of babies whose expected week of confinement is on or after 5 April 2015, or for children who are placed for adoption on or after that date. Unless parents qualify for and opt into the Shared Parental Leave scheme the only entitlement that the child’s other parent will have will be two weeks’ ordinary paternity leave and pay.
The new scheme will make up to 50 weeks of Shared Parental Leave and 37 weeks of Shared Parental Pay available for eligible parents to take or share (that is, everything other than the 2 weeks compulsory maternity leave period following the birth of a child or an equivalent two-week period in adoption cases). A mother or primary adopter will be able to end their maternity or adoption leave, or commit to ending it at a future date, and share the untaken leave with the other parent as Shared Parental Leave. This will enable mothers and primary adopters to return to work before the end of their leave without sacrificing the rest of the leave that would otherwise be available to them. Shared Parental Leave can either be taken consecutively or concurrently, as long as the total time taken does not exceed what is jointly available to the couple.
If you have any concerns about the above, please leave your details and informaiton about your case below.
