Downing Street Says » Flexible Working

The Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) began by reminding Lobby that the Prime Minister had said in the House that it was our intention to extend up the age range of the statutory right to request flexible working. A Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform press notice made clear that we were going to have an independent review of how the current right to request flexible working could be extended to parents of older children. The PMS emphasised that it was a review of how, not whether to extend up the age range. The review would be conducted by Imelda Walsh, the Human Resources Director of Sainsbury’s. The PMS then read out some facts on flexible working. The statutory entitlement of flexible working was currently for parents of children under the age of six, and of parents with disabled children up to the age of 18. This accounted for 6.25million parents. If this was extended to parents of children under the age of nine, there would be and extra 1.4 million parents. If it was extended to parents of children under the age of 12, there would be and extra 2.6 million parents. And if it were to be extended to parents of children under the age of 17, there would be an extra 4.5 million parents. All of this was on top of the original 6.25 million.

Asked for a timescale for the review on flexible working, the PMS replied that clearly we would want this to be a consultative process, we would want this to be in consultation with business, and that was why we had chosen somebody from the corporate sector to head up this review. On exact process it was probably best to check with DBERR.

Asked what the general proposals were in terms of flexible working, and what did it allow a typical worker to do, the PMS replied that it gave people a statutory right to work flexibly. In other words, perhaps working from home, or having flexible hours for example.

Asked if the proposal would be for all parents that worked with children, the PMS replied that at the moment there was a statutory requirement that parents with children up to the age of six, plus parents with disabled children up to the age of 18, had the right to request flexible working. We were consulting on how we could extend this to parents of older children. There was already a well-established mechanism in place for parents of a particular group of children, this was about extending that to parents of older children.

Asked about the financial costs of this proposal, the PMS replied that this was something that would have to be looked at as part of the review process.

Asked if it was correct that with the under six proposals, employers only had a set number of reasons that they could use to refuse, the PMS replied that his understanding was that this was correct.

Asked if there would be penalties for employers who refused, the PMS replied that again DBERR could give the exact details. But in a sense we were not proposing a new regime. There already was a regime, so there would be a straightforward factual answer to the question that DBERR could give. We were extending the existing regime to a wider group of parents.

Asked if this applied to all companies, the example of the corner shop was mentioned in Parliament, the PMS replied that the example of the corner shop was about pensions. But as he had said, this proposal was not to change the scope of the existing legislation in terms of what was covered, so this again was a straightforward question that DBERR could answer. This was about how we extended this to parents of older children, not changing the scope.

Asked if this would make the British economy more or less competitive, the PMS replied that employer groups had supported action we had taken in the past in relation to flexible working. This was something that we wanted to take forward in consultation with employer groups, and that was why we had asked somebody from the business community to lead this review.

Asked when we could expect them to come back with developments, and was there guidance on a preferred age, the PMS replied that obviously there were a number of factors that needed to be taken into account, and on the exact process it was probably best to speak to DBERR. We would look at all the issues in terms of taking a view as to what the appropriate age limit for children might be. In a way the reason we had set up this review, was to make sure that we did a cross examination of this.

Put that if the age limit was 17 then there would be huge costs, the PMS replied that this was one of the issues that would need to be looked at, and why we wanted to do this in consultation with the business community.

Put that if it was a matter of how rather than whether, and asked what would stop the Government wanting to accept this, the PMS replied that we had done this step by step, and there were a number of factors that need taking into account in making that decision. But this Government had a good track record in relation to introducing flexible working measures step by step. We were the first Government to introduce the statutory right to flexible working. The Prime Minister, as Chancellor, on a number of Budgets and Pre-Budget reports took action for example to increase statutory maternity pay as well. This was something that we needed to do step by step.

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» Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Flexible Working

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