NEWS
RELEASE

“Imelda Walsh conducted a thorough review of the right to request flexible working, and consulted a wide range of firms. As a result, the extension to parents of children up to age 16 strikes a fair balance and firms are up for making this extension a success.

"The right to request flexible working has worked well precisely because it is a ‘right to request’, not a ‘right to have’. In nine out of ten cases, employers and employees agree a practical arrangement that suits both.

“But extending the right to another four and a half million parents is a big step and the government must give firms enough time to prepare, particularly small firms that lack the HR resource of big companies. The extension should come into effect no sooner than October 2009 - not next April - as the process to make it law could easily run into the New Year.”

• The 2007 CBI/Pertemps employment trends survey showed that requests from parents were accepted in the vast majority of cases - 94% in total, including 10% agreeing after compromise, compared with 77% in 2004.
• The CBI is the UK's leading business organisation, speaking for some 240,000 businesses that together employ around a third of the private sector workforce. Member companies, which decide all policy positions, include:
  - 80 of the FTSE 100
  - some 200,000 small and medium-size firms
  - more than 20,000 manufacturers
  - over 150 sectoral associations