Replacing me with a volunteer while on maternity

[firecracker123]

Hi

This is a hypothetical question as we are planning on having a baby. I work 10 hours a week for a small organisation in a permanent, paid role (have done for over 4 years). They are a parish council so there is me the clerk and I am the only employee and the council itself is made up of councillors (who all volunteer their time). I expect they may find it hard to get a paid clerk while I am on Maternity and I can foresee a situation where one of the councillors does my role voluntarily and they then decide to continue this arrangement to save money. They have no need to save money as they set their budget and precept parishioners for it annually but they are always keen to cut budget where they can.

Would they be able to put a volunteer in my role and make me redundant whilst I was on maternity ? i.e. My role would still be there but would be being done by a volunteer. Would this breach my right to return to my role if it still exists ? Are my rights different if I took beyond 26 weeks ordinary maternity leave ?

I actually work for several councils all on a few hours a week so if they all did this I would be in trouble! To be clear I am a permanent employee for all the councils not self -employed. I work from home which is why I can work for several simultaneously

A councillor cannot do your role as they have a conflict of interest,

Having been a parish councillor I think it is very unlikely that they would want to lose your role. When were were short of a Clark ( sickness) other local clarks covered. There is also the conflict of interest issue and the Clark has to be a non voting separate individual.

That's what I would like to think. One council in particular has one councillor who has expressed an interest in training to be a clerk. However, they often struggle to get a quorum so if this councillor could not vote it would be problematic