Review of flexible working legislation paves way for its extension

In May 2008, the government published an independent review of the UK’s flexible working legislation. While the review found that the legislation was proving effective, it recommended that the right to request flexible working arrangements be extended to the parents of children up to the age of 16 years. The government has accepted this recommendation and will introduce legislation giving effect to this in the next session of parliament, beginning in the autumn of 2008.

On 15 May 2008, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) published an independent review (137Kb PDF) of the UK’s legislation enabling employees with young children or carers of adults to request flexible working arrangements from their employer. The review found that the legislation is working well and recommended its extension to cover parents of children aged up to 16 years. The government has accepted this recommendation and will consult on implementing legislation to be introduced in the next session of parliament, which is due to begin in the autumn of 2008 (UK0806019I).

Background

The government introduced the right to request flexible working for parents of children under the age of six years, or 18 years in the case of a disabled child, in 2003 (UK0304104F). The right was extended to carers of adults in April 2007 (UK0702019I). In November 2007, the government announced that it was considering the further extension of the legislation (UK0712019I). To this end, it appointed the retail chain Sainsbury’s Director of Human Resources (HR), Imelda Walsh, to lead an independent review to consider how to extend the right to request flexible working to parents of older children.

Key findings and recommendations of review

Among its main proposals, the Walsh review recommends that:

• the right to request flexible working should be extended to employees with parental responsibility for children up to the age of 16 years;

• this extension should be implemented without phasing.

Ms Walsh told the Business Secretary, John Hutton, that:

I have made this recommendation because I am convinced that the challenges which parents with older children face are considerable, and that the arguments for raising the age to 16 are compelling. Some employer groups did ask me to consider phasing in any change. On balance, I believe that phasing causes more confusion for the majority of employers, and that the extension should therefore be implemented in full without being phased.

The review also found that:

• flexible working should not be considered a ‘women’s issue’, as government figures showed that men make up 45% of the 14 million employees, including part-time workers, who are regarded as having flexible working arrangements;

• about six million employees currently have the right to request flexible working (3.6 million parents and 2.65 million carers);

• extending the right to the parents of children up to 16 years of age would cover an extra 4.5 million employees;

• a BERR work-life balance survey showed that 91% of requests for flexible working were granted by employers;

• small businesses generally had a better record for accepting flexible working requests than larger ones;

• more should be done to raise awareness of the right to request flexible working, both among employees and employers;

• businesses would benefit from increased information and guidance about dealing with flexible working requests.

Reactions of social partners

Commenting on the report, the Director of HR Policy at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), Susan Anderson, outlined:

Imelda Walsh conducted a thorough review of the right to request flexible working, and consulted a wide range of firms. As a result, the extension to parents of children up to age 16 strikes a fair balance and firms are up for making this extension a success. But extending the right to another 4.5 million parents is a big step and the government must give firms enough time to prepare, particularly small firms that lack the HR resource of big companies. The extension should come into effect no sooner than October 2009 – not next April – as the process to make it law could easily run into the New Year.

However, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) warned that the planned extension of the right to request flexible working, together with the new rules on temporary agency workers (UK0806039I),

puts small businesses in an impossible position. You can’t have an extension of flexible working and at the same time clamp down on the means by which many small businesses cope with it, which is often through temporary workers.

The General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Brendan Barber, commented:

We welcome the extension to the age of 16. But unions will continue to campaign for everyone to have the right to request flexible working, as it benefits both employees and employers if all staff can find a proper balance between work and the rest of their lives.

Mark Hall, IRRU, University of Warwick