CBI DEMANDS CHANGES TO NOTICE PERIODS AND ADMINISTRATION AS MAJOR EXTENSIONS OF FAMILY-FRIENDLY WORKING ARE PROPOSED
The CBI said today (Monday) that proposals to extend family-friendly working rights could impose an enormous burden on small companies.
To overcome this the employers' organisation said the government had to give more notice of return to work and take back administration of maternity pay.
CBI Deputy Director-General John Cridland said: "Extending family-friendly rights to this extent threatens to make life extremely difficult for small firms."
On notification periods for maternity leave, John Cridland said: "Maternity leave notification periods must be improved as current arrangements leave too much room for uncertainty. Return to work notice periods should be increased to three months and employers need to be able to contact mothers during maternity leave to confirm when they will be returning to work."
On both parents sharing maternity leave, John Cridland said: "Keeping track of which parent was exercising which right would potentially pose an administrative nightmare and it would be unreasonable to expect firms to police this system. The government must present business with an easy administration system to coordinate shared maternity leave."
On flexible working, John Cridland said: "Business has supported flexible working and the new right to request has been a huge success since its introduction in 2003, with eight out of ten requests accepted. But that success could be jeopardized unless proposed extensions take full consideration of the impact on business.
"Any expansion of the right to request flexible working to new groups must be introduced gradually and be targeted where demand is greatest - companies are unable to provide flexible working to all people, all of the time."
28 February, 2005
Notes to Editors:
A CBI briefing note is attached which outlines current family-friendly entitlements and the government's proposed changes.
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.
Attachments:
Media Contact:
CBI Press Office, 020 7395 8239. Out of hours pager, 076 2397 7854.
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