Have your say

Flexible working has always caused employers a degree of difficulty.

Initially the right to request flexible working was introduced in April 2003 but was then extended to other carers in 2007. It had been planned that in April of this year, the right to request flexible working would be extended to parents of children aged 18 or under however, the government has announced that it will not introduce the change.

The government has however committed to extend the right to all employees and as such has now launched a consultation on implementing this pledge.

It is proposed that the right to request flexible working you will be extended to all employees, regardless of their caring responsibilities and it is aimed that a consultation paper will be published later this year to consider the extension.

The government are not proposing to change the requirements of being eligible to request flexible working and the existing eight business grounds on which an employer can refuse requests will also remain unchanged.

What the government does propose however is to replace the current statutory process of considering flexible working request with a simple duty on employers to consider such requests "reasonably". It is envisaged that a statutory code of practice will be introduced outlining what reasonable consideration would involve.

The consultation period ends on 8 August 2011 and if employers want to have their say, now is the time to do so.

The Department for Business Innovation Skills has launched a new consultation document entitled consultation modern workplaces and there are four key issues that are being looked at.

These include flexible parental leave which will retain 18 weeks maternity leave for mothers but will then reclassify the remaining maternity leave as "parental leave" and will mean that the leave can be shared by the mother or father or both. Again most of it will be paid however the consultation will also cover whether employers and employees that agree for parental leave to be taken in chunks or on a part-time basis.

There are three other points which are also going to be looked at which include the extending the right to request that are working to all employees, the provision for amending the working Time regulations to allow employees to carry over untaken holiday in to subsequent years if they lose the chance to take paid holiday because of sickness absence or maternity bleak parental leave.

There is also a consultation involving whether a employment tribunal has a duty to require employers to conduct a pay audit if they have been found guilty of breaching equal pay legislation. The consultation will close on all four points on 8 August 2011.

The government has recently published an independent review of the sickness absence system. It will explore the current sickness absence system and how it could be changed to help people stay in work as well as how the overall cost of the system can be reduced.

One proposal is to place an obligation on employers to take out income protection insurance rather than the payment of statutory sick pay. This would mean that insurers will become involved at an early stage and may be able to provide support to help get employees back to work.

The current Dutch system where employers have to take full responsibility for sick employees, including finding the alternative jobs if they can not get them back to working a current role, is also being considered.

Employers have the right to participate in the review, the results of which will be reported in the autumn of this year.