Carer's Leave 2024

Carer’s Leave
As of 6 April 2024, employees will have the statutory right to a week’s unpaid leave in any 12-month period in order to care for a dependant. 

What is carer’s leave?
Carer’s leave is intended to allow the individual employee to provide or arrange care for a dependant with a long-term care need. As with the right to time off for dependants, the definition of “dependant” includes a spouse, civil partner, child, parent, a person who lives in the same household as the employee (other than tenants, lodgers or boarders), or a person who reasonably relies on the employee for care.

Carer’s leave is a “day one” right, i.e. there is no minimum service required to take advantage of it. As with other statutory leave entitlements, an employee cannot be penalised for opting to take carer’s leave. Dismissal of an employee for a reason connected with taking carer’s leave will be automatically unfair. 

For what reasons can an employee take carer’s leave?
A “long-term care need” is defined as an illness or injury (either physical or mental) that requires or is likely to require care for more than three months, a disability under the Equality Act 2010, or issues related to old age. 

Employers cannot require an employee to evidence their entitlement to the leave. 

How can carer’s leave be taken?
Employees taking carer’s leave must take a minimum of half a working day at a time. They are required to provide notice, although this does not need to be in writing. The notice must include the fact that the employee is entitled to take carer’s leave and the day or part of a day that will be taken. 

Employees must give notice which is either twice the length of time being requested, or three days, whichever is the longer, although employers can waive the notice requirement provided the employee is otherwise eligible to take carer’s leave.

Does an employer have to agree to a request for carer’s leave?
Employers cannot refuse an employee’s request for carer’s leave, but can postpone it if they reasonably consider that the work of the organisation would be unduly disrupted if the leave were agreed. 

The employee must be allowed to take the requested leave within a month of their original request.