The draft Carer's Leave Regulations 2024, which have been made under the Carer's Leave Act 2023, have been laid before Parliament and will introduce a new statutory right to unpaid carer's leave for employees in England, Wales and Scotland from 6 April 2024.
The new entitlement to statutory carer's leave will rely on the carer's relationship with the person being cared for. Carer's leave will be available for dependants, who are defined as a spouse, civil partner, child or parent of the employee, those who live in the same household as the employee (and who are not the employee's boarder, employee, lodger or tenant) and those who reasonably rely on the employee to provide or arrange care. It will also depend on the person being cared for having a long-term care need. This is defined as a long-term illness or injury (physical or mental) that requires (or is likely to require) care for more than three months, a disability as defined under the Equality Act 2010, or issues related to old age.
An employee who has a dependant with a long-term care need may take one week's unpaid leave to provide or arrange care in each rolling 12-month period. The leave may be taken in either individual days or half days, up to a block of one week. In order to take the leave, notice of either twice as many days as the period of leave required, or three days (whichever is the greater) will have to be given. The notice does not need to be in writing and an employer cannot require evidence in relation to the request before granting the leave. An employer may waive the notice requirement where the other requirements of the regulations have been met.
An employer will not be able to require an employee to evidence their entitlement to carer's leave.
It won't be possible for an employer to decline a request altogether, but it may postpone carer's leave where:
- it reasonably considers that the operation of the business would be unduly disrupted if it allowed the leave during the requested period;
- it allows the employee to take a period of carer's leave of the same duration, within a month of the period initially requested; and
- the employer gives the employee a written notice within seven days of the initial request setting out the reason for the postponement and the agreed dates on which the leave can be taken.
The right is a "day one" right, so there is no minimum service requirement. An employer cannot penalise any employee choosing to take advantage of carer's leave once it is brought into force, and dismissal of an employee for a reason connected with their taking carer's leave will be automatically unfair. An employee is entitled to return to the same job they were doing immediately before they took carer's leave.
Where there is a contractual right to take carer's leave, an employee will only be permitted to take advantage of whichever entitlement is more favourable. They will still benefit from the protection of the statutory scheme though and will be protected from detriment and dismissal attributable to the fact that they took or sought to take carer's leave.
