Employment Rights Bill

The Employment Rights Bill will introduce stronger flexible working rules but no extra penalties.

Currently, employees can request changes to their working arrangements up to twice a year and employers must deal with such requests in a ‘reasonable manner’. A request can be refused for one or more of eight statutory reasons (e.g. extra costs, detrimental effect on customer demand) following consultation with the employee. See Flexible working: April 2024 changes.

The Bill specifies that flexible working must be afforded to the employee unless:

• the employer considers that the application should be refused on one of the statutory grounds, and
• the employer’s refusal is reasonable

This will a distinct change: the employer will have to be reasonable in its reliance on the statutory factors whereas currently the employer only has to deal with the request in a reasonable manner and base its refusal on one of the statutory grounds. Where the employee’s request is refused, the employer will have to notify the employee of the ground or grounds for the refusal and explain why it considers that its decision is reasonable. It will not be enough simply to refer to one of the permitted reasons for refusal.

The Bill gives the Secretary of State the ability to make regulations specifying the steps an employer must take to comply with the requirement to consult before rejecting a flexible working request.

There is no change to the existing penalty for breach which will remain at 8 weeks’ pay, capped at (currently) at £5,600.

The ACAS code on flexible working will also need updating.