Our policy document at work states that "Parental leave is for a total of 18 weeks for each child with a maximum of 4 weeks per year".
My manager has interpreted this to mean that am employee can only take 4 weeks per year, whereas I thought an employee could take more that's 4 weeks per year if they have more than one child, as per this wording from the gov.uk website;
"The limit on how much parental leave each parent can take in a year is 4 weeks for each child (unless the employer agrees otherwise)."
In this instance the amount of leave the employee wishes to take isn't in dispute, so please don't turn this into a debate about how much leave is a reasonable amount to take within a year. The employer doesn't want to authorise time over the 4 weeks if it isn't statutorily required to in case it creates a precedent.
Can anyone confirm that a parent is legally entitled to request 4 weeks per year per child, and the employer must respond within the Parental Leave timeline/postponement reasons etc?