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Children and Families Act 2014: A failure of implementation Contents

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Chapter 4: Employment rights

170.Employment rights have a significant impact on the lives of many families, as well as the operations of businesses of all sizes. Despite having had only a limited amount of time to dedicate to the issue of employment rights, we recognise the importance of the changes the Act made, particularly, the impact of schemes such as shared parental leave and flexible working on small and medium business. Their impact deserves dedicated post-legislative scrutiny, accounting for both the family and business perspectives on the issues, which we have sought to give credit to.

Shared parental leave

171.Part 7 of the Act created rights to shared parental leave and statutory shared parental pay.

172.Shared parental leave allows parents to share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay in the first year after their child is born or placed with their family. Shared parental leave can be used in blocks separated by periods of work or all at once. Parents can choose to be off work together or to stagger their leave and pay.

173.Shared parental pay is paid at the rate of £156.66 a week or 90% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower.209 Employers can reclaim 92% of what they paid from HMRC, with the amount rising to 103% if the business qualifies for Small Employers’ Relief.210

Box 8: Shared parental leave and pay

In order to qualify for shared parental leave and shared parental pay, the mother and the partner need to meet the eligibility criteria, give notice to their employers and give up some of their maternity or adoption leave and pay.211 If both birth parents wish to share parental leave and parental pay, they both must be directly employed, rather than working as contractors. They must have been employed continuously by the same employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the due date and must stay with the same employer until the start of the period of parental leave. To be eligible for share parental pay, both parents must each earn on average at least £123 a week. If it is the mother’s partner who wants to take shared parental leave and shared parental pay, rather than the child’s birth father, both the mother and the mother’s partner must meet some eligibility requirements. The mother must have been working for at least 26 weeks out of the 66 weeks before the week the baby’s due date and have earned at least £390 in total across any 13 of the 66 weeks. The mother’s partner must have been employed continuously by the same employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the due date and stay with the same employer until they start shared parental leave. The partner must be directly employed by their employer, rather than work as a contractor, and must earn on average at least £123 a week.

Source: BEIS, ‘Shared Parental Leave and Pay’: https://www.gov.uk/shared-parental-leave-and-pay [accessed 26 October 2022]

Box 9: Other family rights

Parents and recent adopters are also eligible for other family rights, including: Maternity leave and pay: New mothers who are employed have the right to take up to 52 weeks’ leave and to receive up to 39 weeks’ statutory maternity pay. During the first six weeks statutory maternity pay is paid at 90% of whatever one earns (with no maximum). The remaining period is paid at the rate of £156.66 a week or 90% of one’s average weekly earnings, whichever is lower. Statutory adoption leave and pay: Adoption leave can last for up to 52 weeks. Statutory adoption pay is paid at the same rate as statutory maternity pay. For couples adopting a child, only one partner will be able to benefit from adoption leave. The partner who does not benefit from adoption leave might be eligible for paid paternity leave instead. Paternity leave: Partners of those who are having a baby are entitled to either one or two consecutive weeks of paid paternity leave after the child’s birth. It is paid at the same rate as statutory maternity pay. Taking one or two weeks is up to the partner to decide. This also applies when a couple are adopting a child or having a baby through a surrogacy arrangement.

Source: Shoosmiths, ‘Paternity and Shared Parental Leave: dispelling traditional gender roles’ (9 December 2021): https://www.shoosmiths.co.uk/insights/legal-updates/paternity-and-shared-parental-leave-dispelling-traditional-gender-roles [accessed 26 October 2022]

174.Parental leave for fathers/partners has various benefits. The figure below shows positive feedback from fathers who have taken leave:

Figure 7: Views of paternity leave, % of respondents (n=126)

Source: McKinsey & Company, Shaibyaa Rajbhandari, and Gila Tolub, ‘A fresh look at paternity leave: Why the benefits extend beyond the personal’ (5 March 2021): https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/a-fresh-look-at-paternity-leave-why-the-benefits-extend-beyond-the-personal [accessed 26 October 2022]

175.Shared parental leave is a form of early intervention in favour of children’s wellbeing and has knock on benefits for the wider economy. Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, said:

“If you split the unpaid labour more equally in the home, both parents are more willing to do more paid work, so there are knock-on benefits for the economy. We also know from a report published by the Swedish Government that for every month of paternity leave taken by dads, a mother’s wages rise by 7%; it is a huge jump. In addition to the economic benefits [ … ], there are enormous benefits for a child’s educational attainment [ … ] Mothers have lower rates of postnatal depression and better physical health. Dads tend to be happier.”212

Olga FitzRoy, Founder and Campaigner at Parental Pay Equality, underlined the “beneficial impact of fathers taking parental leave on the mothers’
salary - for every one month of fathers parental leave the mothers salary goes up by 6.7%.”213

176.Jane van Zyl, Chief Executive Officer at Working Families, referred to research by the Fatherhood Institute and singled out another benefit: “where fathers spend time with children when they are much younger, it ends up with a lower rate of family breakdown.”214

177.The Government’s impact assessment for the shared parental pay scheme estimated that take-up would be in the range of 4% to 8%.215 The figures below indicate the take-up of statutory shared parental pay, which is broadly in line with the Government’s predictions:

Table 1: Take-up of statutory shared parental pay

Year (April to March)	Number of individuals in receipt of statutory shared parental pay
2015/16	6,200
2016/17	8,600
2017/18	9,200
2018/19	10,700
2019/20	12,600
2020/21	11,200

Source: Written evidence from DfE (CFA0001)

178.The Government has since stated that it “does not have a specific target figure for uptake of the Shared Parental Leave scheme”. Such a statement appears to contrast with comments by Margot James MP, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for BEIS to the Women and Equalities Committee in her oral evidence in 2017, where she said she would consider the take-up of the scheme a success if it reached 25%.216

179.The Government wrote to us that “more detailed figures on the uptake of Shared Parental Leave will be included in the Shared Parental Leave evaluation”. Such an evaluation is still to be published. Dean Russell MP, then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), told us on 17 October 2022 that the evaluation would be published “soon”217

180.BEIS stressed the Government’s efforts in promoting the shared parental leave and pay schemes. It told us that in 2018, the Department and the Government Equalities Office ran a joint £1.5m campaign which included digital website advertising, targeted social media advertising, posters in train stations and on commuter routes, and digital content shared through both government and external partners’ channels.218 Dean Russell recognised that shared parental leave, after a “£1.5 million marketing campaign back in 2018 to promote it, where it is working now is through word of mouth”.219

181.Most sources have been critical about the uptake figures. Charities, such as Maternity Action, called the scheme a ‘shared drive failure’:

“[ … ] it is increasingly clear that the Government’s flagship policy for driving a societal shift towards more equal parenting—the Shared Parental Leave scheme introduced in 2015—has failed. The latest available data suggest that in 2019/20, the fifth year of the scheme, take-up among eligible fathers was just 3.6%.”220

182.Other witnesses agreed that the uptake is too low. Alexandra Hall-Chen, Senior Policy Adviser at the Institute of Directors, said: “Most of us would have expected it to be higher, if not very high, higher than the estimated 2% to 8% that the Government have cited.”221 A member of the British Retail Consortium noted: “In the past 12 months we have had only 6 colleagues that took up the shared parental leave (this is out of 12000 employees), so very low take up.”222

183.The Government disagreed with such assessments, stating that Shared parental leave “has doubled in usage over the past few years”.223

184.Many reasons for the low uptake have emerged. Some relate to culture, others to the Act. Joeli Brearley noted that the two are related:

“You need to change the legislation for the culture to change around dads taking the leave. The current system does not deal with the deeply entrenched gender stereotypes we have in this country that say that dads should be bringing home the bacon and mums should be cooking it and looking after the kids. It simply gives dads access to two weeks’ leave.”224

185.She also noted that: “A large percentage of people who take shared parental leave experience discrimination [ … ] Of those who use the shared parental leave system, 14% faced some form of discrimination”.225

186.We also heard how, since shared parental leave requires the mother to curtail her leave to share it with a partner, this can contribute to low uptake due to entrenched norms around child caring. Jane van Zyl, highlighted that: “We live in a gendered society. Mostly, it is the expectation that the mother will take the leave [ … ] Often, these policies have been designed with the idea that the woman is going to be the primary carer.”226 Maternity Action suggested that the current scheme would be more accurately named ‘transferable maternity leave’.227

187.The Government has accepted that a policy such as shared parental leave requires a huge cultural change. BEIS’ written evidence recognises how other countries, which have implemented schemes designed to balance parental leave entitlements, are still working to increase take-up.228

188.Our evidence also raised issue with the entitlement itself. Evidence from Families Need Fathers, a charity which supports dads, mums and grandparents following parental separation, points to models typical of Scandinavian nations, which “have led the way on equalising, non-transferable, parental leave” while singles out the UK as having “the biggest differential between statutory maternity and paternity leave in the world—at 52 weeks and 2 weeks.”229

189.The complexity of the scheme has also been singled out repeatedly as a cause for concern. Maternity Action described the system as “extremely complex” and argued that “it is poorly understood, both by employers and by parents. A constant complaint from employers is that employment law is too complex and difficult to administer, especially for smaller businesses and organisations without a human resources specialist, and shared parental leave is one of the worst examples.”230

190.The British Retail Consortium added a response from one HR team about their experience: “This is a benefit that is not taken often, and as a result we are not used to working with it and therefore it is more challenging. The biggest issue is that it is quite confusing with a lot of forms to be completed, particularly if the parents both work in the same company.”231 Olga FitzRoy agreed: “The system is very complicated. It is complicated for employers and for employees to understand.”232

191.Similarly, Alexandra Hall-Chen, said that sometimes it is difficult to understand whether to classify fathers as employees (as the Act requires), since fathers who are agency workers or self-employed to not qualify for shared parental leave.233 Jane van Zyl was also critical of the narrow eligibility criteria, with One of the most criticised aspects of the scheme is the fact that the source of shared paternity leave and pay is maternity leave itself. Leave can be shared only after the mother decides to curtail her leave in favour of her partner. It is not an independent right which if not used is lost (a use-it-or-lose-it right) as in Sweden or Iceland234 Maternity Action suggested that the current scheme would be more accurately named ‘transferable maternity leave’.235

192.Contributors to our inquiry also criticised the affordability of shared parental leave and pay. Joeli Brearley highlighted how in many relationships, the father will earn more than the mother, disincentivising him from taking leave and a subsequent drop in income. She told us that 53% of people who did not use the shared parental leave system said the reason was that they could not afford it.236 The Government admitted that one of the reasons for which uptake has not happened “may well be financial”.237 Alexandra Hall-Chen noted that in companies which can offer more generous parental leave packages, uptake is significantly higher.238

193.The Women and Equalities Select Committee (WESC) reported on fathers and the workplace in March 2018. 239 The main recommendations were:

• making paternity leave a day-one right;
• increasing statutory paternity pay to 90% of the recipient’s salary;
• the replacement of shared parental leave with a right to 12 weeks paternal leave paid for four weeks at 90% of salary and for the remaining eight weeks at the statutory rate.

194.WESC recommended that the Government undertake an analysis of the costs and benefits of the suggested policy change. The Committee acknowledged “that the initial costs of implementing such a policy would be considerable” but it believed in “significant gains to the public purse in the long term.”240

195.We endorse the Women and Equalities Select Committee’s proposal to replace shared parental leave with a right to 12 weeks’ paternity leave paid for four weeks at 90% of salary with no cap and for the remaining eight weeks at the statutory rate. Such a change would increase uptake, as it would be an independent ‘use it or lose it’ right and not require mothers to give up any of their leave. We recognise that this is an ambitious proposal, but it is the right ambition to have and one towards which we should move, beginning with the Government publishing an assessment of the costs and benefits of such a policy. As part of this assessment, it should consider particularly the impact of such a scheme on small organisations and enterprises. Moreover, to support smaller businesses, we recommend leaving in place the higher rate of 103% reclaim for employers who qualify for small employers’ relief (and 92% for other businesses).

The current situation of self-employed fathers

196.Fathers and partners taking parental leave carries many benefits, however, self-employed fathers and partners do not qualify for share parental leave or maternity allowance.241 Conversely, self-employed mothers who, in the 66 weeks before the baby is due, are registered for at least 26 weeks and earn £30 a week (or more) in at least 13 weeks, are eligible for maternity allowance. In this instance, self-employed mothers can receive between £27 to £156.66 a week for 39 weeks.242

197.Home for Good, a charity which works on adoption and fostering, underlined that “in February 2022, there were 4.23 million self-employed people in the UK, constituting 13% of the total workforce. [ … ] Demographically, 35% of those who are self-employed are women and 65% are men.”243

198.While self-employed mothers can make use of maternity allowance (subject to conditions), self-employed fathers and mothers’ partners receive no paternity allowance. They are treated unfairly in relation both to self-employed mothers and employed fathers/partners. At a minimum, we recommend that self-employed fathers/partners be given a right to shared paternity pay subject to the same conditions and at the same rate as directly employed fathers/partners. We further recommend that the Government’s long-term ambition should be for self-employed fathers/partners to receive 12 weeks’ paternity pay, paid at the same rate mothers receive maternity allowance. We acknowledge that individual circumstances may not allow this, but nevertheless believe this should be the Government’s ambition which would provide a level playing field for self-employed parents, empowering them to spend time bonding with their child.

Kinship care

199.A kinship carer is a friend or a relative (but not a parent) with whom a child lives full-time or most of the time. There are over 150,000 children living in kinship care in England. Box 10 lists the different types of kinship care. In Chapter 2 we discussed the challenges facing kinship carers, which also extend to their employment rights.

Box 10: Kinship care—key concepts

Informal kinship care: when children live with kinship carers due to an informal arrangement made by their parents or other family members. Kinship carers do not have parental responsibility for the children, and they are not ‘looked after’ by the local authority. Kinship care based on a Child Arrangements Order or Special Guardianship Order: A Child Arrangements Order is a legal order where the court decides either where a child will live or who a child can spend time with and for how long. A Special Guardianship Order (SGO) is a legal order where the court appoints a carer as the ‘Special Guardian’ of a child until they turn 18. The Special Guardian shares parental responsibility for the child with the parents and can make nearly all the major decisions about the child without having to consult the parents. Kinship foster carers: when children who are ‘looked after’ by the local authority are placed with a foster carer who has a kinship relationship with the child. The child is considered ‘looked after’, and the kinship foster carer will not have parental responsibility.

Source: Kinship, ‘What is kinship care?’: https://kinship.org.uk/for-kinship-carers/what-is-kinship-care/ [accessed 26 October 2022]

200.The Family Rights Group highlighted the lack of legal definition of kinship care. “Without an agreed definition, kinship carers can quickly run into a myriad of confusion and misunderstanding [ … ] kinship carers find they are having to constantly explain who they are and what they need.”244

201.Professor Elaine Farmer, Emeritus Professor of Child and Family Studies, University of Bristol, highlighted that kinship carers tend to be more likely to be single, be in financial difficulty, be in overcrowded conditions and have a disability or chronic health condition.245 She added: “The biggest group of kinship carers are grandparents. They disproportionately have long-term health conditions, as you might expect at a certain age.”246

202.Dr Lucy Peake, CEO of Kinship, elaborated: “It is really important to remember that these grandparents are often women, and the retirement age for women has been going up [ … ] We are seeing lots of kinship carers dropping out of the labour market, often for the second time. Many kinship carers, if they are doing that in their 50s or 60s, will say, ‘I know that I am impoverishing myself for these children, today and for ever’, because they know that they cannot build their pensions up.”247

203.Jo Mitchell, National Service Lead, PAC-UK, told us how some kinship carers near retirement were drawing on their life saving to provide support to the children in their care. 248

204.As discussed in Chapter 2, many kinship carers receive little or no support from the state. Professor Elaine Farmer said that “the biggest challenge facing kinship care is its invisibility [ … ] many kinship carers bringing children up with little or no help from the state.”249 Jane van Zyl, argued for parity of rights for kinship carers: “As far as we are concerned, however you acquire your family … everybody with a family should have equal rights.”250 Even employers agreed in principle. Alexandra Hall-Chen, stated that “from an employer perspective, there is no reason why the treatment would be different.”251

205.Although more than 150.000 children live in kinship care in England, kinship carers currently have no legal right to paid time off from work and often have to rely on the good will of their employers. As a consequence, carers can be forced to leave the labour market. We recommend that kinship carers with a Special Guardianship Order be provided with the same rights to leave as adopters when a child is placed in their care to ensure parity of support.

Flexible working

206.Part 9 of the Act gave all employees with 26 weeks’ continuous service the right to request flexible working arrangements. This right was previously reserved exclusively for parents and carers. Box 11 sets out the most common forms of flexible working, which includes a range of arrangements. Experts we spoke to were keen to stress that flexible working does not only mean working from home. As Jane van Zyl, Chief Executive Officer at Working Families told us, focusing exclusively on home working “would impact only on knowledge workers.”252

Box 11: The most common types of flexible working arrangements

Part time—one works fewer days during the week, or reduced-hour days; Compressed hours—full time hours are worked but over fewer days; Working from home—one performs some of your duties at home, or at another remote location; Hybrid working—this involves a mix of working from home and going into the office; Flexitime—one agrees with the employer when to start and end the working day, but maintains certain core hours, such as from 9am-3pm daily; Job sharing—one job is shared between two people and the hours split accordingly; Staggered hours—one has a different start, finish and break times from one’s colleagues; Phased retirement—older workers can choose when they want to retire and make the transition towards that by reducing their hours.

Source: Georgie Frost, ‘What are my rights to flexible working?’, The Times (26 July 2022): https://www.thetimes.co.uk/money-mentor/article/what-are-my-rights-to-flexible-working [accessed 25 October 2022]

207.The Government stated that the aims of extending the right to request flexible working were:

• to provide more employees with access to contractual flexible working;
• to help employees to better reconcile their work and non-work lives;
• to help employers to secure the business benefits of flexible working;
• to avoid the stereotype that flexible working be seen as something ‘only for parents and carers’.

208.We heard that flexible working has many benefits.253 The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said the policy’s primary advantage for families is that being able to work part-time, having flexible start and finish times, or working from home, “can make it easier for parents to balance work and childcare needs.”254

209.Moreover, the BEIS evaluation of the 2014 Flexible Working Regulations produced findings on the impact of flexible working for families255. For example:

• the proportion of workplaces receiving requests for school term-time working increased from 11% in 2013 to 20% in 2018–19;
• using reduced hours working arrangements has been associated with lower chronic stress among women caring for two or more children aged under 15;
• recent evidence from new mothers shows high demand for flexible working on return from maternity leave and employers offering such working arrangements benefiting from improved staff retention rates among new parents;
• around half of mothers returning to work after maternity leave changed their working patterns, such as their working hours (32%) or agreed new working arrangements (24%).

210.The outbreak of the pandemic has accelerated a culture change around flexible working, specifically homeworking and hybrid working. In February 2022, more than 8 in 10 workers who had to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic said they planned to hybrid work and the proportion of workers hybrid working rose from 13% in early February 2022 to 24% in May 2022.256 Homeworking and flexible working arrangements tend to be most common amongst office workers in London and the South-East.257

211.There is a strong appetite for flexible working amongst parents. Working Families interviewed just over 3,000 working parents and carers in November 2021, and it emerged that and three-quarters of parents wanted to work flexibly.258

212.From the employers’ perspective, Alexandra Hall-Chen, Senior Policy Adviser at the Institute of Directors, said that the vast majority of their members, in some form, were offering flexible working.259 She added that this increase had been expedited by the pandemic. When members were asked in January 2022 what their long-term plans were around hybrid working, “around four in five said that in the long term they intended to offer some form of hybrid working—anywhere between one day a week working from home to going fully flexible.”260

213.Nevertheless, individual employers and employees have different perspectives on remote and hybrid working patterns and returning to offices or place of work. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, while both businesses and individuals preferred a ‘hybrid’ working approach in the future, a significant minority (38%) of businesses expected 75% or more of their workforce to be at their normal place of work, while a large proportion (36%) of those currently homeworking thought they would spend the majority or all their time homeworking in the future.261

Figure 8: Businesses estimated percentage of workforce to return to their normal workplace on any given day, UK

Source: Office for National Statistics, ‘Is hybrid working here to stay?’ (23 May 2022): https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/ishybridworkingheretostay/2022–05-23 [accessed 26 October 2022]

214.Employers have eight business-related reasons to deny requests for flexible working262:

• extra costs that will damage the business;
• the work cannot be reorganised among other staff;
• people cannot be recruited to do the work;
• flexible working will affect quality and performance;
• the business will not be able to meet customer demand;
• there’s a lack of work to do during the proposed working times;
• the business is planning changes to the workforce.

215.Experts we took evidence from were critical of the reasons available to employers to refuse a flexible working request. Joeli Brearley argue that the current reasons are nebulous, making it easy to refuse a request.263Dr Michelle Weldon-Johns, in written evidence, not only agreed on the point that “it is also relatively easy for an employer to refuse a request given the wide-ranging grounds for refusal” but noted that there are limited grounds for challenging a refusal through an employment tribunal.264 Jane van Zyl added that “We find that many of the employees who talk to us have been refused with literally the eight business reasons that have been laid out, cut and pasted into an email from HR.”265

216.Despite this, according to the Post Implementation Review of the 2014 extension (2021), more than 8 out of 10 requests were granted. Evidence also suggests there has been an increase in the average number of requests received by workplaces, from 1 in 2013 to 3.8 in 2018–19.266

217.Some employees may not put forward a request for flexible working due to fears of rejection or discrimination. Pregnant Then Screwed noted that 42% of working mothers believe there’s no point asking for flexible working because they will be rejected, while a similar number would not ask for a flexible working arrangement during a job interview out of fear of discrimination or impact on their likelihood of being hired.” 267 They noted that “these worries are justified: 86% have faced discrimination and disadvantage because of their flexible working arrangements.” 268 Fathers face similar issues, with data from Pregnant then Screwed showing that 24% of those fathers who haven’t made a flexible working request have done so out of fear they would be treated negatively by colleagues or their employer, while 16% knew their request would be rejected. Their data also showed that 1 in 5 fathers who work flexibly have experienced negativity at work including: negative comments from colleagues or their employer, missed out on training or other opportunities, or felt their opinion was less valued.269

218.Joeli Brearley raised concern that many employers may feel that as they are allowing workers to work in a hybrid homeworking post-pandemic, they are “doing enough”, and the number of flexible working request refusals is rising as a result.270 She pointed to an increase in flexible working requests being rejected in 2021, with their helpline showing two-thirds (71%) of requests for flexible working were being rejected in the first year of the pandemic, almost double what they had seen pre-pandemic.271

219.In 2021, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy opened a consultation on reforming flexible working regulations. The results of the consultation have not been made public yet.272

220.One of the most common recommendations by campaigners is for the right to request flexible working to be made a day-one right. Currently, employees can apply for flexible working only if they have worked continuously for the same employer for 26 weeks.’273Amongst those calling for making it a day-one-right is the Women and Equalities Select Committee, which called the 26 week threshold “unhelpful and unnecessary.”274 Jane van Zyl approved, saying: “we certainly would like to see the right to request as a day-one right because it will push employers to think about how the job can be done. We cannot think of a job that could not be done flexibly in some way.”275

221.Representatives of employers agreed, with Alexandra Hall-Chen stating:

“Due to the strong business case that we see and the fact that more than half our members told us that they already accept, let alone consider, requests for flexible working from employees who have not been with them for 26 weeks, it is clearly in many cases already established good practice in business. We would support the Government in making the right to request flexible working a day-one employment right.”276

Employers’ consent came with the condition that the business reasons to reject a request be maintained.277

222.Some witnesses were concerned that making flexible working a day-one right would not lead to the necessary culture change in and of itself. Joeli Brearley took this position, stating that: “The right to request is the right to decline. I strongly believe that the proposals for moving this to a day-one right to request will do very little to change the culture around flexible working.”278 She suggested that this culture change could be achieved by having employers design jobs as flexible by default, describing the type of flexibility that is available to an employee before they apply for the job.279 This, she stressed, would “flip the onus from the employee on to the employer. [ … ] it means that jobs are designed as flexible from the outset. If you have a good business reason as to why that is not possible, that is okay; you do not have to advertise the types of flexibility that are available”. 280

223.In its oral evidence, the Government stated that, while they wanted to keep an open mind over making the right to request a day-one right, they needed to “look at the balance of the burden on business and the opportunities for the individual”281 as “we must not go down the route of making it so that government is legislating too strongly about what business needs and what the employee needs.”282

224.Flexible working brings numerous benefits on an individual and societal level. However, employers and employees seem to disagree on how to implement the right to request flexible working arrangements. Many employers and campaigners would support making the right to request a day-one right, though some argued that instead jobs should be designed and advertised flexibly from the outset. In principle, we see no obstacles to make the right to request flexible working a day-one right. We would also recommend that businesses—while maintaining the statutory business reasons to refuse employees’ requests—be encouraged to advertise jobs flexibly whenever possible, with the Government leading by example.

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