Policy hub
Achieve the highest level of professional recognition CHARTERED MEMBERSHIP Chartered membership is CIPP’s highest level and demonstrates that you are a highly qualified, compliant payroll professional, committed to maintaining high standards in payroll knowledge and experience. It inspires confidence with employers and clients, and reduces organisational risk.
new parents. The consultation, which was published in January, recommended that the current protection afforded to the period of maternity leave under the Maternity and Paternity Leave etc Regulations 1999, be extended to cover both the period of pregnancy and for the six months period beyond. The proposal is the government’s commitment made in response to the Taylor Review, and had previously been raised by the Women and Equalities Select Committee. ...to protect women especially if they return on a part-time basis... We received 22 responses to the survey we ran for this consultation and can provide a summary of the results. Three in four respondents (i.e. 75%) agreed or strongly agreed that protections against redundancy for a period following return to work should be aligned with those already in place during maternity leave. disadvantaged and unfairly selected for redundancy whilst on leave and in some cases a few months after they have returned to work ● ● to protect women especially if they return on a part-time basis ● ● protection should be in place, but it should not mean that a returnee from maternity leave would be placed in a role that they could not do which would therefore have a negative effect on the company, rather than someone who is skilled in that role being offered it first. On asking about the costs to businesses that an extension might bring, responses included the possibility of losing the wrong people in a restructure situation. About the cost to individuals, responses included that additional responsibilities may be added to the role, and a higher risk of redundancy if not returning from maternity leave due to being 'lower' in the order for possible restructuring. As regards the benefits the extension may bring, responses for business benefits included: retaining qualified/experienced staff; diverse employers who look out for everyone’s needs; business would be able to assess better a person's skill once they are settled into the routine of their job, Some of the reasons given were: ● ● experience of women being
and therefore if the job is still required in a restructure situation. The responses for individual benefits included: women would be less exploited; might encourage more women to return to work; beneficial from a well-being perspective; gives the individual a settling in period; for those returning better job security, but none for others. As to whether six months would be an adequate period for redundancy protection purposes, 75% said yes, six months was adequate, but 25% disagreed. Comments included: it should be one year, as some employers wait until the employee returns and then dismiss them on redundancy grounds within six months of returning; a fair amount of time to make it affordable for employers (depending on the size of the employer); gives a further advantage over all employees who could be part of a redundancy situation; three months would be classed as adequate as they are protected from beginning of pregnancy to the end of maternity leave and this gives them up to eighteen months of being out of scope for redundancy compared to their colleagues and could be deemed as advantageous for women. In response to the question “Should pregnancy for redundancy protection purposes be defined as starting at the point a woman informs her employer that she is pregnant in writing?”, 13% strongly agreed; 13% agreed; 24% neither agreed nor disagreed; 37% disagreed; and 12% disagreed. In response to whether a different reference point should be used, three in four said yes, a different reference point should be used. Comments included: two to three months prior to expected week of confinement; at the point the employee is leaving to start her maternity leave; and one caveat would be if redundancy procedures had already begun. The consultation also asked that if additional redundancy protection is extended to mothers returning to work after maternity leave, are there other forms of leave which should be considered also, citing as examples: adoption leave, shared parental leave (SPL) and longer periods of parental leave. All respondents indicated that adoption leave should be considered; the majority thought SPL should be considered. Our full response to the consultation is available at www.cipp.org.uk under My CIPP/Policy hub. n
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 50 | May 2019
*correct at time of publication
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