Taking parental leave ON TOP OF Additional Maternity Leave (may be a bit long winded!)

[shinyshoes]

I will try making this as brief as possible.

I was due to take 2 weeks Holiday prior to maternity leave.
I asked for holiday to be 12-26 December 1997. Then maternity leave 26 December onwards.
The supervisor agreed this although not in writing. She normal formalises holiday leave in writing but because it run coincurrently to my maternity leave she just kept the copy of the hoilday form and the letter explaining my intentions and verbally agreed it. I had no holiday left but I had 6 weeks lieu and assumed she would take it from that.

I left to start holiday on 12 December as agreed.

Something funny started happening to my wage packet. I wasn't being paid correctly. I rang admin for them to state I had been put on Maternity as soon as I left, not holiday for 2 weeks, like I said, I had no holiday left and assumed it was to be taken out of my leiu that had accrued. Because it was technically my mistake and nothing was in writing I left it and put it down to being my fault.

Anyway I'm now due back 2 weeks before christmas , I was thinking of taking as much of my holiday entitlement for this year as I can on top of my AML, as I want to be home for christmas but because she only really agrees 2 weeks at any one time it means me going back on my daughters 1st birthday which I don't want to do either.

Also if I can keep all my holiday intact for school holidays next year (I have to other chilren) I would prefer to take the unpaid parental leave.
So, I have found a site which says I am entitled to parental leave of 13 weeks as long as I meet the criteria, I think I do, but I don't understand the part about returning to work 4 weeks within the 13 weeks to return to my job that I left (same conditions, same as the old position I left it). what happens if I want the whole 13 weeks parental leave? can they down grade my job then refuse me my application to flexible working hours?

I want to get an independent perspective on this as she can be a funny bugger and word things in such a way she will deny ever saying them at a later date if I challenge it.

Thanks, and I hope I've made sense!!

[annh]

What happened to the six weeks lieu time? Did you get paid for that?

[shinyshoes]

No, i've still got it stored, I can carry that over to the next financial year, but I'd prefer not to dip into that if I can get away with being off on parental leave instead. I'd prefer to save the leiu for when I really need it (6 weeks holidays for example).

[foxymolly]

Try to find flowerybeanbag, she knows about this sort of thing.

[theyoungvisiter]

I am not certain but I think you do not have a right to request more than 4 weeks in any one year, and they can postpone your request by up to 6 months.

a look at this link www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Moneyandworkentitlements/Parentalleaveandpay/DG_10029416

So you can request it, but they might not agree.

Also the parental leave is 13 weeks TOTAL for each child, not per year, so if you use this up you will not have a right to any further leave for that child ever. Would you prefer to leave some in the bank, so to speak?

Hopefully someone versed in HR will be along to give you chapter and verse though..

[theyoungvisiter]

sorry, link didn't work. Try that again:

this link

[shinyshoes]

I will try to track down FloryBeanbag, thanks FoxyMolly.

theyoungvisitor thats an interesting site and slightly different to the one I've been looking at, so in theory I could ask for 4 weeks now as I'm due back just short of 6 months if I apply now and they postpone it?

Would I be unreasonable in asking my supervisor for as much leave as I can get off while they haven't got to cover me as such, or shall I not be as outspoken about my intentions?

[shinyshoes]

This is the site I've been looking at
www.berr.gov.uk/employment/employment-legislation/employment-guidance/page34246.html

[flowerybeanbag]

This is interesting. Normally I would link to Directgov as theyoungvisitor has done. But the more lengthy and 'official' BERR guidance is different. According to this you can take more than 4 weeks parental leave in one go, and you could also take less than a week if you need to. Very unusual for two govt sites to differ but I'd go with the second one.

If you take more than 4 weeks parental leave in one go, you don't have the right to return to the same job if it's not practical for you to do so, but they couldn't downgrade you, it would have to be no less favourable. But the same applies after AML anyway, so taking parental leave would have no impact.

Don't forget you will have accrued a whole year's worth of holiday during maternity leave as well, and you will need to take any of that you haven't taken otherwise you might lose it - the same rules for carrying over holiday apply to that as well.

In terms of when you start maternity leave, that's for you to specify, so if you specified a date and they forcibly started you earlier they can't do that unless you were off sick or something. I think your first port of call ought to be sorting that out tbh. If you had lieu time (6 weeks?!) to take, and you specified maternity leave to start on 26th December, they should make the necessary adjustments to reflect your initial decision I think.

Other than that, you will have loads of holiday to take which will take you into next year, or you can take parental leave, bearing in mind they can postpone it if they need to. I'd probably go for the holiday option tbh out of those two.

If you want to make a flexible working request, none of the above has any impact on that, so do it completely separately. Sort this out first to avoid complicating the issue.

[shinyshoes]

Excellent post FloweryBeanBag, It has answered alot of unananswered questions.

I think what I will do is ring admin on Monday and ask for a copy of my holiday request form which specified I wanted 2 weeks holiday THEN I put on there I was to go straight on maternity leave.That is my starting point and my fight to get 2 weeks leiu added on top of maternity that should have been given before the start of maternity.

My supervisor when I spoke to her kinda shrugged her shoulders and said it was Head Office/payroll whomever that put me on maternity leave straight away, admin (whom knew nothing about rates of pay/ entitlement/ maternity in general, led me to believe as I didnt have the 'holiday leave' to take they couldn't give it to me even though I'd accrued all that leiu and I assumed it would have been taken out of that She never said it but I got that impression.

Anyway I'd cancelled my union subs as I was on mat leave and needed the money, I need to find out about rejoining, just in case
Thanks all again for the replies