A Peninsula guide: 2011 changes to maternity and retirement
Transferring maternity leave
Mothers can now surrender up to six months of their maternity leave for babies born on or after 3 April 2011. This can be reassigned to the father of the baby, or in a single sex relationship, the mother’s partner. This additional paternity leave (APL) permits fathers or mothers’ partners meeting certain specifications to take up to 6 months’ leave. Although it is in addition to the current entitlement to 2 weeks of paternity leave, APL has to be used in one continuous block.
Promotion and recruitment
The positive action provisions set out in the Equality Act 2010 in relation to recruitment and promotion come into force on 6th April 2011. This means that, when recruiting or promoting, businesses can treat someone with a protected characteristic more positively if people with this characteristic are underrepresented in the workforce.
This depends on certain conditions, including that positive action must only be relied upon when multiple candidates are equally qualified. For example, if two candidates are evenly matched after interviews, and one candidate is from an ethnic minority so far underrepresented in the business, the employer may decide to give the job to that candidate on the basis of their race. Positive action is completely voluntary and employers are not obliged to use it.
Compulsory retirement
The statutory retirement procedure and default retirement age (DRA) are to be gradually abolished, between 2011 and 2013. The draft regulations repealing former legislation were recently published, with the effect that companies will be unable to issue any new notifications for compulsory retirement citing the DRA. Of course, before 2013 these regulations might be subject to change because they are currently just in draft form.
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