Local Government - May 2009

Last month saw the publication of the Equality and Human Rights Commission report entitled ‘Working Better’. The report was published following a survey of some 4,500 people regarding family life and changes that they would like to see in the future as regards the rights of parents in the workplace.  A second report will be published in the future which will focus on older and disabled workers and those who have wider care responsibilities.

One key message that came out of the survey was that fathers indicated that they wanted to have the opportunity to spend more time with their children. As a result of this finding the Commission has proposed, as part of its report, that statutory maternity leave should be cut and paternity leave increased in order to see more sharing of paid leave between parents.

The Commission has suggested that new fathers should get two weeks leave at the rate of 90% of their normal pay and then another four months leave to be taken before the child has reached the age of five.

The report suggests that women cannot afford to take the full maternity leave that is available to them because so much of it is unpaid. Therefore it is felt that it would be more sensible to effectively allow parents to choose in terms of who takes time off and when to undertake care and responsibility for children.

In addition the Commission has called for higher levels of maternity and paternity pay in order to increase uptake, particularly among men, lone parents and lower income groups. Clearly however these proposals have a cost associated with them and this has been estimated at some £5.3 billion.

The Government’s response to these proposals has been to emphasise that it does recognise the importance of ensuring that both mothers and fathers are able to spend time with their families but to make it clear that it feels that the UK already has generous and progressive measures in place to support parents. Given the changes that have been implemented over the course of the last five to ten years it is likely that many employers would agree with this and will be concerned as to the potential adverse impact of these proposals on their ability to effectively run their business at a time of extreme economic pressure.

So watch this space for further developments…………

Mike Berriman, Partner                Jane Hobson, Partner
michael.berriman@weightmans.com    jane.hobson@weightmans.com