Labour Research (October 2014)

Law Queries

Child’s disability

Q. My daughter has a disability and I want to work fewer hours to spend more time caring for her. Is my employer obliged to make reasonable adjustments to my hours because of my daughter’s disability?

A. No. The employer’s statutory duty to make reasonable adjustments is owed only to the disabled worker and not to anyone else, such as a parent.

However, even though your employer is not obliged to change your hours as a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act 2010, you do have other potentially useful rights.

In particular, you are entitled to make a flexible working request to change your hours, which your employer can only reject for one of a list of specific business reasons.

www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/1/a/The-right-to-request-flexible-working-the-Acas-guide.pdf


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