Flexible leave for parents to be reformed

The government has announced reforms that will allow parents to share up to a year's leave after the birth of a child. Under the new system, parents will be able to choose how they share the care of their child.

Employed mothers will still be entitled to 52 weeks of maternity leave. However, working parents will have much greater flexibility about how they ‘mix and match’ their leave. They may take it in turns or take it together, providing it is not more than 52 weeks in total.

Mothers will have to take at least the initial two weeks of leave after birth as a recovery period, but can then choose to end the maternity leave and the parents can opt to share the remaining leave. It will be up to both parents to decide how they share the remaining weeks.

The government plans to legislate on this next year, with changes to flexible working in 2014 and reforms to flexible parental leave in 2015.

BWF Chief executive Iain McIlwee commented:

“All businesses appreciate work life balance and most work with employees already.  Right now small businesses are working hard to stay afloat,  this is additional burden, the legislation is not taking into account the higher costs of cover, admin and unsettled periods, which will put additional pressure on the business and in all likelihood impact significantly on the wider team.  However this is dressed up it is about targeting votes, not helping business or the economy – the price of this flexibility may be very high and will undoubtedly cause firms to look at employment in a different light.”