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Original poster

parental leave denied

675 replies

user1471461798 · 03/03/2018 20:23

I work term time only and requested parental leave for 3 weeks as my daughter leaves school this year and we plan on going to Florida as it’s less money than school holidays. Anyway my employer has rejected it , stating I have enough holiday throughout the year. My argument is I am entitled to this leave and have spoken to Acas who agree with me. I should add that my job entails covering for others, sickness, days off to look after their children and also holidays! How do I deal with this?

OP posts:
MyDcAreMarvel · 10/03/2018 10:41

The op's daughter is 16 once again celesti read the thread!

scotchpie · 10/03/2018 10:41

Why is it ok for other staff in the same role & contract to use parental leave for holidays, but not OP?

Enjoy your
Holiday

Willow2017 · 10/03/2018 10:43

celesti
Why are you being a gf?
It doesnt make one jot of difference to.your life what op wants pl for.
It actually doesnt make one jot of difference to the government either.

So stop ragging on op. Maybe it makes you feel superior cos you have never taken pl but you just sound bitter and jealous and not the moral compass you think you are.

Original poster
user1471461798 · 10/03/2018 10:53

celesti, i do hope you work on your own, God forbid, someone may want you to cover for them, having a good working relationship involves give and take, as i’ve said many times before, my work colleagues do not have any issues, and i’ve probably made up the hours, that i’m not getting paid for!! many times over the years.

OP posts:
Icomehereseekingpeas · 10/03/2018 11:18

People commenting on here just to question the validity of Parental Leave. Fuck off being a bell end!

AnoiaUnstickMyDrawers · 10/03/2018 11:40

It does say on the government website that if the leave is postponed the employer has to inform you within 7 days of the original request. And we know OP requested it properly because she did it on a special section of the portal.
I would think, and I'm speculating here, that the fact that the refusal was unlawful means that it doesn't have any bearing on the response time.

confusedandemployed · 10/03/2018 11:53

I've just ploughed through the insanity of this thread in one go.
The whole thing highlights exactly how and why employers routinely ignore employment rights: they are banking (very safely) on their employees not having a clue about their rights.
OP enjoy your holiday.
Naysayers: educate yourselves. You might benefit from it.

roundaboutthetown · 10/03/2018 12:21

confusedandemployed - to be fair, I think in this instance the people who turned down the parental leave had no clue themselves and were not "the employer," but other uneducated employees who didn't know when to pass it on to HR for proper advice. They should have received better training, though, I guess, as line managers, or should have exercised more common sense in passing the problem on to the experts. They may now be in trouble with their employer themselves for handling it badly.

roundaboutthetown · 10/03/2018 12:26

Personally, I think it goes back to underfunding again - LAs got rid of loads of experienced staff who knew what they were doing during the recession and the result of doing everything on a shoestring with hardly any HR staff is that nothing is really done properly.

PissedOffNeighbour · 10/03/2018 12:43

Good luck OP. There are a lot of ignorant/jealous posters on here!

confusedandemployed · 10/03/2018 13:06

roundaboutthetown yes point taken. Although I feel that people who employ other people have a duty to have a basic understanding of their responsibilities to them. Mind you if they did I'd be out of a job 😁

roundaboutthetown · 10/03/2018 13:11

There you go then, confusedandemployed - other people's ignorance is a good source of work for someone. Grin

Steakandchips3 · 10/03/2018 15:13

Do the posters who are against the op taking the leave realise that it's unpaid!!! The op is not getting public money for the leave. She is choosing to take a financial loss. I don't understand why that would bother anyone?!

roundaboutthetown · 10/03/2018 16:50

Steakandchips3 - it bothered me because I work term time only and I don't see how it wouldn't disrupt my employer's business (which involves educating and caring for children just like my own, so it's not as if I don't care if children like my own may be detrimentally affected), and be unfair on my colleagues who would be covering me to take 3 weeks off. In other words, I would feel genuinely selfish to ask for three weeks off in term time, knowing I get every school holiday off unpaid already, even though I could afford to take more unpaid time off, because I would know it was putting pressure on colleagues who are already feeling the pressure.

However, user has made it clear that her role is not like this and her colleagues would not mind covering for her, anyway, especially given that this is the one and only time she is likely to ask for it. Plus, if schools were not so grossly underfunded and understaffed, It wouldn't be so disruptive if people occasionally took parental leave or even just went off sick, anyway, so why should user suffer the consequences of government policy to underfund schools? That's not her fault.

Reallycantbebothered · 10/03/2018 16:54

I really wish I'd been made aware of this policy when my 3dcs were young enough to benefit with me taking time off....I too missed out on all the new benefits available to working parents/ childcare vouchers etc...
I work in the NHS and I've been in my current post for 10 years and was not aware I was entitled to this, and I doubt many of my colleagues do either .
I do wonder if it's kept deliberately quiet , can you imagine if every nurse requested it? staffing is bad enough as it is and although we're entitled to it I'm sure the managers would find some reason to say they couldn't allow it even though that would be illegal and we'd probably just accept that

roundaboutthetown · 10/03/2018 17:07

Reallycantbebothered - it might be better than strike action, if every school and NHS employee in the country who was also a parent asked for parental leave at once. Grin Would probably just end in government banning parental leave for such people, instead, though Sad. It seems to me government is quite happy with legislation "improving" working conditions and family life, provided nobody takes advantage of it and government doesn't have to fund it properly. Like their faux increases in funding for the NHS and schools, when that is more than swallowed up by population increases, inflation, increasing social problems, and unfunded increases in employer pension and NI contributions, etc, etc.

MachineBee · 12/03/2018 18:23

How has it been for you at work today OP?

catlady45 · 14/03/2018 18:14

Hi op just rtft. Are you any further forward? It would be a shame to have to give your job due to not gettig something your legally entitled to. X

Oxfordblue · 15/03/2018 08:23

Come on User, I'm desperate for an update - have you been given your parental leave? I do hope so!

Original poster
user1471461798 · 15/03/2018 14:52

UPDATE; Got into work today, both managers there, asked to see me, after 20 mins of small talk😳, basically said, that as no one had ever asked for parental leave before, they didn’t know the process. So had to take advise. Upshot, is I can have it, but they would like me to reapply under unpaid leave. As I’d put down I was going on holiday, they felt other people would use that as a precedent. She also asked that I ignore the part on the letter ref disciplinary action being taken if I went. So the answer to getting Parental Leave, seems to be not giving any information except time to spend with children. Anyway, now they know the process, hopefully it will be easier for others.

OP posts:
RandomMess · 15/03/2018 15:34

Well I'm glad they've conceded but it seems a bit inappropriate how they've dealt with it Confused

CotswoldStrife · 15/03/2018 15:38

Meh, I suppose that's a win because you've got the leave (presumably on the dates that you've asked for) but it does look like a bit of a fudge to cover their backs!

Either way, you're in the clear so I hope the holiday is fab for you all

daisychain01 · 15/03/2018 16:16

I'd make absolutely certain they don't accidentally or otherwise mentiin anything on your HR records about disciplinary. Literally it shouldn't even mention this on your record.

You don't want it to come back to haunt you in x months or years in futur, when some or all of those decision makers aren't in post any more. Stranger things have happened....

FormerlyFrikadela01 · 15/03/2018 16:53

I'd personally be insisting that this is recorded as parental leave and not unpaid leave. Call me paranoid but I wouldnt want it looking like they'd done me a favour granting unpaid leave rather than you're legally entitled parental leave.
And as for setting a precedent.... that's their problem it yours.

SocksRock · 15/03/2018 16:59

They need to record it as parental leave as there is a lifetime allowance for that. 18 weeks. So if you got a new job, they would need to tell your new employer how much of your 18 weeks you had already used. I’ve done a couple of references and there was a specific section on the form for recording it