|
Equality and Human Rights Commission
BAME Women's Councillors Taskforce
Sex Discrimination Legislation
|
 |
||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||||
| ||||
Home | Women and Work | Working and Living |
||||
Working and Living |
||||
Everyone should be able to balance work and family life.
An effective work-life balance not only benefits individuals, but employers who take action on work-life balance report improvements in retention, morale and productivity.
The Government Equalities Office is working with other sections of the Department of Trade and Industry to provide support for working parents and carers.
Early years and childcare
The Government wants to give all children the best
possible start in life, whilst supporting parents who work, study
or train. We want to ensure that affordable, accessible, quality
childcare is available in every neighbourhood.
Paid Leave and Flexible Work
Every year almost 700,000 babies are born, the majority of whom are to working parents. The Government wants to enable women and men to have genuine choices about how they balance work and caring responsibilities. More about maternity and paternity pay and leave
Financial Support
Financial support for working parents includes the National Minimum Wage, Child Benefit, Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit to help make work pay, support those in need, and tackle child poverty. Around 10 million children in 6 million families benefit from tax credits.
Support for Carers
Many families have responsibility for caring for elderly or disabled relatives, and may struggle to balance their work and caring responsibilities. The GEO is supporting the Department of Health on the wide ranging review of the 1999 National Carers Strategy announced by the Prime Minister in February 2007.
Maternity and Paternity Pay and LeaveEvery year almost 700,000 babies are born, the majority of whom are to working parents. The Government wants to enable women and men to have genuine choices about how they balance work and caring responsibilities.
In doing so, we want to support employers in recruiting and retaining the best people.
From April 2007, Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) combined with other Government financial support is worth at least £8,000 for many families during a child’s first year, this is up from £2,600 in 1997.
Additional Paternity Leave and Pay will entitle employed fathers to a new right of up to 26 weeks Additional Paternity Leave, some of which could be paid, if the mother returns to work.
The Work and Families Act 2006 has taken powers to enable this new provision to provide more choice to parents in caring for their child, giving fathers a greater opportunity to be involved in the upbringing of their child.
The Act is good news for working parents, carers and employers. This contains a range of measures including extending maternity pay and leave which will benefit around 400,000 new mothers every year.
The Government’s intention is to introduce Additional Paternity Leave and Pay alongside the extension of maternity pay to 12 months.
Additional Paternity leave and Pay Administration was put out to consultation. This closed in October 2007 and the Summary of Results is now published on the BERR website.
A consultation on the draft Regulations will then be considered for early 2008.
Government has ruled out extending SMP to 12 months in April 2009, but remains committed to doing so by the end of this parliament.
Flexible Working
The right to request flexible working has been a huge success. Just a few months ago we extended the right to carers of adults – another 2.65 million employees.
As we move forward in this area, we must take the business community with us. Employers have been critical to the success of the right to request, and we need to be mindful of the impact of any extension on the business community.
We are dealing with cultural change and changing people’s behaviour - all of this takes time. It is worth noting that 56% of employees are working flexibly and 87% of employees are satisfied with their working pattern.
There has been substantial increases in the availability of flexible working arrangements - and unmet demand for flexible working practices has also fallen. Employees have more choice about how they work and are more satisfied with their working arrangements.
What is flexible working?
'Flexible working' is a phrase that describes any working pattern adapted to suit needs. Some common types of flexible working are: part-time, flexi-time, compressed hours, staggered hours, job sharing, and working from home.
These working patterns may be combined to suit circumstances.
Since April 2003, employees with disabled children, or children under the age of six, have had the right to ask for flexible working arrangements.
Almost a quarter of parents with children under the age of six (22%) have asked for flexible working since the law was introduced (DTI Apr 2007 Work Life Balance Employees, published Feb 2007).
As of April 2007, carers of adults have also been given the right to ask for flexible working arrangements.
In the Queens speech 2007 the Prime Minister announced that the Government has decided to extend the right to request to parents of older children. He also announced the appointment of Sainsbury’s Human Resources Director Imelda Walsh to conduct a review of where the new cut-off for the age of a child should be.
The current right to request flexible working applies for parents of children up to 6 and disabled children up to 18 as well as carers of adults. The review will consider how the right to request flexible working could be extended to parents of older children and the upper age limit of a child which should apply. The review will consult stakeholders and make recommendations to the Secretary of State in Spring 2008.
3.6m parents with young and disabled children already had the right to request to work flexibly - extending the right to carers gives an extra 2.65 million people the right.
Present figures are:
Importance for women and families
Awareness of Flexible Working
Employers
Increase in flexible working
(Workplace Employment Relations Survey, 2004)
[1]Labour Force Survey, Autumn 2005 [2]Work Life Balance 3 employee survey (Executive Summary published July 2006) [3]Work Life Balance 3 employee survey (Executive Summary published July 2006) [4]Ibid [5]Fourth European Working Conditions Survey 2007(European Foundation) [6]Maternity and Paternity Rights and Benefits: Survey of employees 2005 [7]Ibid [8]The Third Work-Life Balance Employee Survey: Main findings was published in 2007 and the research was conducted in 2006
|
||||
|
Updated January 2008 | © Crown copyright |
||||
|
|||
|
|||
| |
|||
Useful websites
Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform - Employment Matters
HM Treasury - Work and Welfare
|