Employment Matters March 2007

Family Fortunes - The New Law

The Work and Families Act 2006 (“WFA”) sets out the framework for the latest array of family friendly policies from the government. It provides the basic outline of the changes leaving much of the detail to come in by secondary legislation.

Most of the changes relate to maternity and adoption rights. These will apply to employees whose expected week of childbirth (“EWC”) is on or after the 1 April 2007 or, in the case of adoption, employees who are expected to have a child placed with them for adoption on or after 1 April 2007.

The main changes are:

Removal of Qualifying Period for Additional Maternity Leave

The length of service requirement for additional maternity leave (currently 26 weeks) will be removed with a result that all women who qualify for ordinary maternity leave automatically qualify for additional maternity leave. Accordingly all women will be entitled to 52 weeks maternity leave regardless of how long they have worked.

Extension of Notice of Return from Maternity Leave

The notice women are required to give if they wish to return to work early from maternity or adoption leave will be doubled from 28 days to eight weeks. The rational is to give employers more time to plan their staffing needs.

“Keeping in Touch” Days

“Keeping in touch” days will be introduced. An employee on maternity or adoption leave will be able to work for up to ten days during the statutory leave period without losing statutory pay or bringing that leave to an end.

“Work” includes any work done under the contract of employment and may include training or any activity undertaken for the purpose of the employee keeping in touch with the workplace.

Any work done under these provisions does not extend the total statutory maternity or adoption leave period. However, any such work must be by mutual agreement between the parties.

Employers need to consider paying the employee should they work during their maternity or adoption leave. The legislation does not deal with this. It is therefore a matter of agreement between the employer and employee.

However, consideration needs to be given to other matters such as the national minimum wage, equal pay and sex discrimination.