Carers and Employment

Right to request flexible working

Flexible working patterns can allow employees to manage both work and their caring responsibilities. Flexible working could include flexible starting and finishing hours, compressed working hours, annualised working hours, term-time working, job sharing, part time working, home-working or tele-working.

You have the right to request flexible working if you are an employee with 26 weeks continuous employment at the date you make an application, and you are:

• a parent with a child(ren) under 17 or a disabled child(ren) under 18 or;
• a carer - to qualify as a carer under the legislation, you must be, or expect to be, caring for a spouse, partner (who you live with), civil partner or relative, or live at the same address as the adult in need of care. "Relative" includes parents, parent-in-law, adult child, adopted adult child, siblings (including those who are in-laws), uncles, aunts or grandparents and step-relatives.

The law gives you the right to make one application per year for flexible working. However, your employer may be sympathetic if you find your circumstances have changed and you need to make a further application.

The request to work flexibly must be made in writing and dated and should include:

• confirmation that you are eligible (that you are a carer)
• an outline of the working pattern you would like
• an explanation of the effect, if any, you think the proposed change might have on your job and, how you think this could be dealt with.
• the date on which you would like the proposed change to start.
• whether you have made a previous request and, if so, the date of that request.

Your employer can only refuse your request if they have good business reasons for it. It is important to consider the needs of your company when you make your request, and to include as much information as you can about how your proposed change will help the business as well as you, or how you can deal with any possible negative impact you think your employer may be concerned about.

Your employer may have a standard form for you to use or you can use a form available from the Carers UK website [external link]

Employers for Carers

This is a service for employers to help them retain the 1 in 7 employees in their workforce who have a caring responsibility. Many of these employees are employers’ most valuable staff, aged 45 – 64, who are at the peak of their careers. Maintaining these staff makes good business sense. For more information, visit the Employers for Carers website [external link]

Support from Job Centre Plus

If you aren’t currently working but would like to so, JobCentre Plus can help you to get back to work. They offer a range of training and financial help, including funding for replacement care and childcare costs for approved training courses and interviews. For more information visit the Direct Gov website [external link] or contact Clare Moohan at Darlington Jobcentre Plus on 01325 385084.

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