Weekly Bulletin - New Parental Leave Directive to be implemented in March 2013
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30.1.2012
The new Parental Leave Directive (2010/18/EU) is to be implemented in the UK in March 2013 The EU Council of Ministers adopted the new Parental Leave Directive in March 2010. This will increase parental leave entitlement from three to four months. Although EU Member States are given an initial period of two years to implement the Directive, they are allowed to extend this by an additional period of one year if they so require (Article 3(2)). This time extension is designed to give Member States some leeway to consider and overcome any particular issues that may be encountered when preparing to implement the Directive. With this in mind, the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (“BIS”) has indicated that it intends to make use of this additional year to implement the Directive. Therefore the Directive will be implemented in the UK in March 2013, rather than March 2012. BIS considers this extension to be necessary as it is waiting for the Government’s response to its review of parental leave requirements. This review was conducted by BIS as part of its recent consultation on modern workplaces (“Consultation on Modern Workplaces: flexible parental leave, flexible working, annual leave and equal pay”). The consultation closed in August 2011 and the Government’s response is expected in early 2012. In summary, the purpose of the review is to encourage discussions on adopting a culture of flexible, family-friendly employment practices. In order to do this, BIS is looking into ways in which it can work effectively with businesses to implement the necessary infrastructure changes as comprehensively and efficiently as possible. BIS wants to ensure that all changes made have minimal cost and disruption impact on businesses. Therefore it aims to construct a strategy for implementing the new Directive that adheres to the principle of reducing red tape, bureaucracy and complexity.
This bulletin is for general guidance purposes only and should not be used for any other purpose.
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