If I wanted to take summer mths off to look after children, does employer have to consider?

[tinyflies]

Random I know but thinking ahead I've decided that I would quite like to take July August off next year. Obviously I don't want to loose my job but I've heard before that there is some kind of unpaid time off you can take over the summer. Does anybody know any details on this?

I think you’re thinking of parental leave, which has to be taken in blocks (unless DC are disabled). You can ask but employers can say no if it doesn’t fit business needs.

www.gov.uk/parental-leave

@SecretVictoria that's exactly the name iof it. I might look into to see if I can find out what my employer stance is on it.

You can ask, but they don’t have to say yes if it doesn’t meet with their business needs.

They have to consider your request to take up to 4 weeks per child but they have the right to defer for up to 6 months the time you take the leave for business reasons.

I think you are talking about parental leave. www.gov.uk/parental-leave

Be aware that just because you want it at that time doesn't mean the employer has to agree - they have a right to delay it and could do so if, for example, it would leave them short-staffed due to holidays etc. They could easily say that they can't accommodate it but offer you September and October - or any two months in the next six months - instead. Obviously some employers could cover such a request easier than others.

You can ask for up to 4 weeks a year, but if the dates you’ve requested don’t work for your employer then they can legally request that you postpone them for up to 6 months, providing you’re still able to take your full entitlement within the year.

Need to look at your companies HR policies to get an idea if you can do this. Then think about if your job can be covered without you there for that length of time, what will the impact be on the service?

Parental leave over July & August might cause problems with your colleagues if there are restrictions on how many people can be off at one time.
I’ve only worked with one person who could afford to take parental leave. Only 2 people allowed off at any one time, so it caused a lot of resentment when she applied to take the whole of August off - it meant 2 others couldn’t have any time off during the summer holidays

As well as parental leave, some companies (albeit not many!) offer time term working mimicking school holiday working. So you work full time for say 39 weeks of the year and don't work at all for 13 weeks which is 0.75FTE. You get paid the part time salary throughout - whether it's a full time week or a zero hours week. Worth an ask...

term time, not time term!

Thanks all for the help. I 100% understand that it would depend on the business needs and other staff members being off etc. i would mind if I wasn't granted it by any means but it would be nice if it was accepted. We have lots of students in over the summer looking extra hrs so I don't think it would be an issue in regards to getting me covered but I will ask

I did this over the summer just gone. I took 2 weeks holiday and 4 weeks unpaid parental leave. I did check my emails though and pop into the office a couple of times to do some bits. My manager was fine with it as it's quiet over the summer and they knew I would be around if anything urgent came up.

If this is an employment contract that would suit your family life and is not agreed by your current employers could I suggest you look for another job that offers this type of flexibility. ? I don't know much about large private companies but I have been a civil servant for 32 years and they have accommodated every type of arrangement I have requested (even when I was a very lowly Admin Officer at the beginning) . I have variously worked full time, full time term time only, part time and back to full time. Now I am on full time compressed so do all my hours in 4 days and have a 3 day weekend. There is a lot of recruiting going on at the moment across all grades and all departments.

It's always easier when there are plenty of staff to accommodate this type of contract request.

I think this now has implications on the amount of holiday you can have - term time only staff now have the advantage over full-time staff in terms of their holidays - they simply will be entitled to more. For us that would make term-time only employees, less profitable than part-time or full time employees.