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Employees who care for a dependant with a long-term care need are entitled, from 6 April 2024, to one week of flexible unpaid leave per year.

This right is granted via the Carer’s Leave Act 2023 which gained Royal Assent on 24 May 2023. New sections 80J-N are inserted into the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996). The Carer's Leave Regulations 2024 set out more details of the statutory scheme. 

Background

Previously, unpaid carers who were also in employment had to rely on other types of leave to meet their caring responsibilities, such as parental leave if they were caring for a child or annual leave.

Employees had the right to unpaid time off to handle emergencies and certain other situations involving dependants, including children, spouses, and parents, but this type of leave could not be taken where the employee knew about the situation beforehand, which limited how it could be used. For example, it could not have been used to take an elderly parent to a planned or routine hospital appointment.

Employees are increasingly using the right to request flexible working to help accommodate their caring responsibilities, but this is dependent on the flexible working pattern being workable for and accepted by their employer.

Outline of the new right

• A new entitlement to carer’s leave is available to the employee (not the wider category of ‘worker’) irrespective of how long they have worked for their employer (a Day 1 right).
• This relies on the carer’s relationship with the person being cared for (the dependant), which broadly follows the definition of dependant used in the right to time off for dependants – a spouse, civil partner, child, parent; a person who lives in the same household as the employee (other than by reason of them being their employee, tenant, lodger, or boarder) or a person who reasonably relies on the employee for care.
• The dependant must have a long-term care need. This is defined as a long-term illness or injury (physical or mental) likely to require care for more than 3 months, a disability as defined under the Equality Act 2010, or issues related to old age.
• Leave can be taken either as a single block of one week or individual days or half days.
• The amount of leave is determined by the employee’s normal working pattern. For those with a consistent work schedule, a week’s leave matches the period they are usually required to work. For an employee with a variable work pattern, the calculation is based on an average of the work periods over the preceding 12-month period. If the employee has been employed for less than 52 weeks, the calculation is based on the entire period of the employee’s employment; or, if the employee has been employed for less than one week, a period equal in duration to the period the employee is expected to work in that week.
• If an employee needs to care for more than one person, they cannot take a week of carer’s leave for each dependant. They can only take one week every 12 months. They can use the week of leave on more than one dependant.
• Eligible employees need to comply with specific notice requirements set out in the regulations, including providing advance notice to their employer of at least twice the number of days as the period of leave requested or three days in advance, whichever is earlier.
• An employer can postpone an employee’s leave if it considers that the business would be unduly disrupted by the employee’s absence. However, to do so, it must notify the employee as soon as reasonably practicable and not later than the earlier of seven days after the employee’s notice was given to the employer, or before the earliest day or part day requested in the employee’s notice. The employer also needs to consult with the employee and reschedule the leave to start no later than one month after the earliest day or part day of the employee’s request. 
• Employees can self-certify their entitlement to carer’s leave. An employer cannot require an employee to supply evidence in relation to a request for leave.
• After taking carer’s leave, the employee is entitled to return to the job in which he or she was employed before the absence, with the same seniority, pension rights, and not less favourable terms and conditions.
• The employee is protected from being subjected to detriment or dismissal on the grounds of taking, seeking to take, or because the employer believed that the employee was likely to take, carer’s leave.
• Where an employee has a contractual right to carer’s leave in addition to the statutory right, he or she is not permitted to exercise both separately. Instead, the employee may take advantage of whichever right is more favourable in any particular respect.

The government and ACAS have both published guidance:

• The government guidance provides a short overview of the right to take carer's leave, including how much carer's leave can be taken and for what purpose, how to calculate a week's leave, how employees can take the leave and when an employer can delay it.
• The ACAS guidance is more detailed. It also summarises the right to take carer's leave. It goes into more detail than the government guidance and sets out useful examples and tables of tricky elements such as how to calculate a week's leave for part-year or irregular hours workers, and how much notice the employee must give to take different amounts of leave. The guidance also contains advice on how employers can postpone leave and for what reasons.It confirms that employers do not have to pay employees for carer's leave but suggests that they may choose to do so and advises employees to check their organisation's policies to confirm pay arrangements.