Employees with young or disabled children are entitled to take periods of unpaid parental leave. Please note that in addition to this statutory entitlement, the University also has a supportive Maternity, Paternity and Adoption Leave and Pay Policy.

An employee must comply with certain qualification and notification requirements before taking this leave. These are detailed below.

Entitlement to parental leave

Employees are entitled to 13 weeks' unpaid parental leave if:

• they have at least one year's continuous service with the University
• they have a child under the age of five or have a child who was adopted within the past five years and is under the age of 18
• they have - or expect to have - parental responsibility for the child

An employee is entitled to 18 weeks' unpaid parental leave if their child is entitled to receive disability living allowance.

A week's leave is equal to the length of time the employee is normally required to work, e.g. a week's leave is:

• five days for an employee working Monday to Friday
• two days for an employee working Tuesday and Wednesday only

The right applies to a single child. Therefore, if an employee has twins they are entitled to 26 weeks' unpaid parental leave. Parental leave cannot be transferred between parents.

Entitlement where the employee changes employer

The 13 or 18-week entitlement applies to an individual child, not to an individual employment.

Therefore if, for example, an employee has taken eight weeks' parental leave with their previous employer, they are only entitled to take another five (or ten) weeks while in the University’s employment. They must also have completed a year's service with the University to qualify.

Evidence of entitlement

The Regulations allow for employers to ask for evidence, if necessary that:

• the employee is the parent of a child
• the employee has parental responsibility for the child
• the child is below the age at which the right to parental leave ceases
• in the case of a disabled child, the child is entitled to disability living allowance

This evidence could be:

• the child's birth certificate
• papers confirming a child's adoption or the date of placement for adoption In the case of a disabled child, a record of disability living allowance payments for the child

The employer’s request for evidence must be reasonable, eg it may not be reasonable for employers to check on the employee's entitlement on every occasion on which leave is asked for.

Record keeping

Whilst the Regulations do not compel us by law to keep formal records of employees' parental leave, it is important for proper records to be maintained of any such leave taken, and for the arrangements to be made for deduction of pay as appropriate, and so all such requests should be referred directly to HR for advice and implementation.

Notification and postponement of parental leave

An employee must give the University at least 21 days' notice before a period of parental leave begins, of both the start and end dates of the leave period they intend to take.

An employee must notify the University 21 days before their maternity or adoption leave ends if they want to take parental leave immediately after the end of their maternity or adoption leave.

Notification for parental leave immediately after childbirth or adoption

If an employee wants to take parental leave immediately after the birth of a child, they must give you 21 days' notice before the beginning of the expected week of childbirth.

If an employee wants to take parental leave immediately after the adoption of a child, they must give you 21 days' notice of the expected week of placement. In rare cases where this is not possible, an adoptive parent should give you notice as soon as is reasonably practicable.

As long as the employee gives the right notice, their parental leave will start on the day on which the child is:

• born - regardless of whether the child is born early or late
• placed for adoption

Postponing leave

If the University has very sound and defensible business reasons, it can postpone the leave for up to six months after the beginning of the leave period the employee originally requested. However, the University cannot postpone leave so that it ends after a child's fifth birthday (or 18th birthday in the case of adopted and disabled children).

The University is only entitled to postpone leave if it would cause significant disruption to the business of the University, eg if leave was requested:

• over a particularly busy period – ie at the beginning of the new academic term or other particularly busy period.
• at the same time as other employees have requested leave
• when the employee's absence would unduly harm the business of the University

The University cannot postpone leave where the employee wants to take it immediately after their child is born or placed with them for adoption. If the University needs to postpone the employee's parental leave, it must consult the employee about a new date. To do this, the University must write to the employee within seven days of receiving the employee's notification explaining why it needs to postpone their leave and confirming the new start and end date.  The University must allow the employee to take the same amount of parental leave as they originally applied for.

Time off for dependants leave

Time off to deal with emergencies involving dependants – an introduction

All employees have the right to a reasonable amount of unpaid time off to deal with an emergency involving a dependant.  Please note that in addition to the statutory right to take time off to deal with emergencies involving dependants, the University also has a paid special leave/compassionate leave policy of up to 5 days to deal with bereavement. Requests for compassionate leave should always be considered sympathetically and in confidence.

A dependant is a spouse, partner, child or parent or a person who lives with the employee (but not a lodger). However, it could also be someone else who reasonably relies on the employee for care, eg an elderly neighbour.

Employees can take leave when a dependant:

• falls ill, or is injured or assaulted - including mental illness or injury, eg  emotional distress
• goes into labour

They can also take leave when they need to:

• make longer-term care arrangements for a dependant who is ill or injured
• arrange or attend a dependant's funeral
• deal with an unexpected problem in care arrangements, eg if a childminder is unexpectedly unavailable
• deal with an incident involving the employee's child during school hours, eg suspension from school

How much time off can an employee take?

The right is to reasonable time off. This amount of time isn't fixed - it should simply allow the employee to deal with the immediate problem and put any other necessary care arrangements in place.

For example, an employee would not normally be able to take two weeks off to care for a sick child, but they could take one or two days to take the child to the doctor and arrange for someone else to look after him or her.

Emergency time off and protection against detriment or dismissal

Employers must not:

• subject an employee to detrimental treatment for taking emergency time off
• dismiss an employee - or select them for redundancy - because they took, or sought to take, emergency leave

Updated October 2009