FAMILY LEAVE

1.  Policy statement

The Employee Relations Act 1999 gives a statutory right to family leave. The University has already adopted policies which support the requirements of the Act and these include policies on Flexible Working, Holiday, Maternity Paternity and Adoption Leave and Special Leave.

2.  Scope

This Policy applies to all University contracted staff. Parents include someone of either sex who lives with the child in an enduring relationship, or has legal guardianship of the child, but is not the parent’s grandparent, child, grandfather, sibling, aunt, niece or nephew). An employee will have the right to family leave if he/she has one year of continuous employment and:

·  is the parent of a child under the age of 18 on or before 5 April 2015;

or

·  has adopted, after 5 April 2015, a child under the age of 18 years. This right will last for 5 years from the date on which the child is placed for adoption or until the child’s 18th birthday, whichever is the sooner.

3.  Aims

Family Leave is taken to look after a child or to make arrangements for the good of the child enabling employees to combine work and family life.

The University already has a scheme for special leave which in most situations allows for the employee to be paid in the circumstances outlined in the Special Leave Practice Statement. Where leave requested is in excess of one week in a year, the employee will be expected to use part of their Family Leave allowance, unpaid Special Leave or use annual leave.

There is also a scheme allowing a period of paid paternity and adoption leave as outlined in the Maternity/Paternity/Adoption Policy and Procedure.

4.  Principles

4.1  Leave Allowances

Each week of family leave will be without pay. There is an allowance of 18 weeks for each child which should be taken before the child’s 18th birthday, or until five years have elapsed following adoption. In multiple births, 18 weeks leave will be provided for each child. (Leave taken with previous employers count towards this total). The University will develop a procedure to obtain details of previous periods of family leave from past employers. Employees working part-time, or who job-share, will have a pro-rata leave entitlement in relation to hours worked.

4.2  Taking Leave

Family leave should be taken in blocks of a week or multiples of a week and should not be taken as ‘days off’. Employees cannot take more than 4 weeks continuous leave during any 12 month period.

5.  Procedure or guidelines

5.1  Requesting Leave

5.1.1  Employees should give 21 days’ notice in writing to their Line Manager, except in the case of illness or a genuine emergency when the Line Manager should be contacted by telephone as soon as possible. The employee should also complete a University Family Leave (Appendix 1) to be authorised by their Line Manager. If more than one week is requested, then the notice period should be twice the length of the leave, e.g. 3 weeks’ leave = 6 weeks’ notice required. Your notice should specify the exact day the leave will commence and for how long the leave is required.

5.1.2  The Line Manager will reply to the request for leave within one working week to advise if the leave can be taken or will need to be postponed. However, leave may only be postponed if it will cause major problems to the School or Department and the Line Manager should provide full reasons for the postponement with a copy being sent to Human Resources. Leave cannot be postponed for more than 6 months. It is recommended that School Managers/Senior Administrators keep a record of the amount of parental leave taken before forwarding the authorised Form to HR who will record on the HR system and advise Payroll.

5.1.3  Employees will remain employed whilst on Family Leave but unpaid leave is not superannuable. At the end of the period of Family Leave the employee is guaranteed the right to return to the same job as before, or, if that is not practicable, a similar job which has the same grade as the previous job. Where the leave period is for four weeks or less, the employee is entitled to return to the same job.

6.  Responsibilities

A brief table of the key areas of activity and the role-holder with overall responsibility:

Role / Accountable for
Deans of Schools/Heads of Departments/School Managers / Approval to authorise leave requests
Human Resources / Provision of professional HR advice, final authorisation of Family Leave Request Form, input of data to HR system and advising Payroll

7.  Approval

This Policy was approved by the People and Organisational Development Committee on 3 March 2017.

8.  Monitoring

Human Resources will monitor the amount of Family Leave taken by employees and will advise Schools and Departments on an annual basis.

9.  ‘Review by’ date

This document will be reviewed in March 2022.

Review may occur earlier of legislative and/or professional standards change.

10.  Related Documents

Special Leave Practice Statement

Maternity/Paternity/Adoption Policy and Procedure

Flexible Working Policy and Procedure

Holiday Statement

Flexi-Time Scheme

Document Control
Title:
Family Leave Policy
Applicable to:
e.g. All Staff (except casual staff)
Date of Issue:
e.g. March 2017
Procedure Owner:
e.g. Human Resources

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