Latest from our Legal Eagle for HR Professionals...

Wednesday December 10 2008

 

Our very own legal eagle, Anna Denton from Morgan Denton Jones, has been kind enough to share her up-to-the-minute legal knowledge with us...and you!

 

Keep checking the scrapblog every week for the latest legal news, hints, tips and facts. 

 

This week's legal latest...

 

Flexible working was identified in a recent survey as the "perk" which many employees would rather have than any other. In May 2008 the government indicated that with effect from April 2009 the right is to be further extended to be available to all parents with children under the age of 16.   The proposal follows a failed 2007 private member's Bill which would have extended the right to request flexible working to all parents with children under the age of 18. However, given the economic downturn and in face of pressure from business, the government has recently signalled that it is reconsidering the currently proposed extension, at any rate in relation to its introduction as soon as April 2009.  The TUC general secretary Brendan Barber has been quoted as saying this would be "an astonishingly irrelevant response" to the problems facing the economy (see The Guardian, 20th October 2008). As at the beginning of November no decision has been announced.


It is worth noting a further proposed change to the current rules. The law currently provides that an employer must give written notice to an employee of either agreement or disagreement to a request for flexible working. Few employers are aware that they have a legal obligation to give written notice of agreement and the current proposals will remove that obligation.  The requirement to give written notice of a refusal will, of course, remain.

 

If you would like to receive information on the HR related seminars that Anna presents for Marble Recruitment, please email nicola@marblerecruitment.co.uk

 

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