BeaufortBelle - I'm not sure how my tone indicates "sneering"? I guess you could ask my VC whether I am sneering, as he personally apologised to me about the missed deadlines. And - not that I really need to justify myself, but I had prepared the documents in consultation with admin staff in person, and then:
emails sent at the start of the application process giving full details of financial details & deadlines,
then two weeks before deadline,
then 1 week before deadline with near-complete documents
then 48 hours before deadline after I submitted via JeS (when actually I had heavy bronchitis, was at a conference and a substantial time difference so I was getting up at 5am to ensure that my work was done in a timely fashion).
Deadlines still missed. Someone should have been disciplined, but they covered up.
I've already said that, reading your posts, you seem knowledgeable about the broad outlines of universities core activities ie teaching & research. But your subsequent posts indicate the same old, same old assumptions about academics. Like the HR assistant who sent long bits of writing we'd asked for in an appointments process with 10 interviewees on the Friday before interviews on the Tuesday. 10 interviewees sent us each 6-7,000 words. We'd timetabled the due date for the shortlisted candidates for 2 weeks before interviews so that we had time to read the materials, but when I asked I was told that it was all confidential & I couldn't be allowed to see the materials. I was on the selection committee and responsible for assessing research.
It's this sort of jobsworth stuff that I object to.
Re maternity pay: It's good to hear that packages have improved. As I say, I was looking at doing it as a lone parent about 15 years ago. For all sorts of reasons - but workload & finance were the real crux - I couldn't do it.
The OP is male - AFAIK, paternity leave is 2 weeks. With my colleagues, we've covered teaching for that time, and my colleagues have done as much by email as possible re seeing students etc. It's easier because it's only a short time, but harder because it's much harder to plan - leave not really taken until the birth, and so on.
But I'm interested in someone saying upthread that their DH as an academic won't teach after 5pm. Who does pick up that teaching if it's necessary? Are all colleagues given that leeway, or are older, younger, childless colleagues expected to do it? I really think that "family friendly" has to apply to everyone not just those with young children. Everyone has the right to a domestic life & a decent work/life balance. Otherwise, you get all sorts of resentments.
I've found it interesting as manager of colleagues on fractional contracts for family reasons - they are much more aware naturally, of how many hours they do over the specified ones in their contracts. We all do, but dropping back to part-time so you have time with your children throws it into high relief.
And can I just say - there's a tendency in this thread to lambast those who don't appear to value their family/home life? I find these conversations interesting but difficult as a single childless woman - I feel like I'm being put in the same basket as the married man with the wife who deals with all the family stuff and is negative about colleagues who want a better work/life balance. We're not all the same, and some of us make huge sacrifices in different (often invisible to the rest of the world) ways.