Parental Leave

Carillion recognises the need for employees to exercise their parental responsibilities at various stages of a child’s development.

This practice has not been covered by Carillion’s employment terms and conditions and compassionate leave is covered under the special leave section. Carillion has therefore introduced a policy for parental leave in line with the Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations.

Provisions of the Policy

The basic provisions of the Parental Leave Policy are as follows: -

Eligibility

Employee has one year of continuous employment with the Company.

Employee must produce evidence to support the entitlement to parental leave.

The Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999 give both the right to 13 weeks unpaid leave to care for a child up to their 5^th birthday, or a child placed for adoption for 5 years from the child’s date of placement.

From the 10^th January 2002, the Parental Leave entitlement has been extended to include parents of children who were born or placed for adoption up to five years before 15^th December 1999 when the right was first introduced. Parents in this situation will have until 31^st March 2005 to use their parental leave.

In addition, parental leave for parents of disabled children, has been increased to 18 weeks which can be taken until the child’s 18^th birthday. A disabled child is a child for whom a disability living allowance is awarded.

Parental leave should be treated as unpaid leave unless it falls into a category where paid leave is appropriate, e.g. adoptive.

Key Points

An employee is entitled to a maximum of 13 weeks unpaid leave per child taken before the child’s 5^th birthday (unless the child is entitled to a disability living allowance when the leave can be taken up to the age of 18)

Leave to be taken in minimum of one week blocks. Parts of a week will count as one week.

No more than 4 weeks to be taken in any particular year.

A year is defined as the 12 month period commencing from the date on which the employee became first entitled to parental leave with a particular employer.

If the parental leave is taken as 4 weeks or less then the employee will have the right to return to their same job with unbroken service.

Employee must give 21 days notice to take parental leave.

The employer has the right, within 7 days receiving notice, to request the employee to postpone leave for up to 6 months for business operation reasons. A postponement will not apply when the request for the birth of a child or for adoption purposes.

During any period of leave the Contract of Employment will remain in force in most areas excluding payment as well as terms relating to notice of termination, redundancy compensation and disciplinary and grievance procedures.