8working FAMILY MATTERS rights to help parents B
CHILDREN’S
DRAGONS are having a moment - only a few weeks back, Elys Dolan’s Knighthood For Beginners saw Dave the rubbish dragon try his hand at being a knight and now, for younger children, Lou Carter and Deborah Allwright have a dragon (called Dragon) who’s fed up of being the baddie and wants to be the hero of any story that will have him.
In his search for stardom, he meets a small gingerbread man, Jack, up a beanstalk, a little pig, Goldilocks and... the list goes on. But they all tell him: ‘There is no dragon in this story’ (you get the picture).
But, when the dragon comes face-to-face with the giant who’s chasing Jack, everything changes and suddenly, after one very big sneeze, Dragon gets his chance to save the day. With cute illustrations and a healthy lesson in perseverance, this is a charm of a picture book. EING a working parent can be tough. There are plenty of legal measures designed to make it a little easier, howevermany working parents don’t know what their rights are.
New research has found 41% of parents are unaware of their legal right to take unpaid parental leave to care for their children, and 75% admit to never having taken advantage of this entitlement.
The research by employment law specialists Crossland suggests 27% of parents will spend up to £800 on holiday club fees over the school summer holidays, when they could have simply taken unpaid leave. Take-up of the entitlement is 25%.
Employment solicitor Liz Gardiner, advice service development leader at Working Families, says: “Parental leave, flexible working and emergency leave can all be useful tools for parents trying to balance work and family life.”
Working Families outlines the main parental rights as follows:
If you take more than six months of maternity leave, you can return to your old job unless it’s “not reasonably practicable”, in which case your employer must offer you a suitable alternative job on similar terms and conditions.
TO get Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) you need to have worked for your employer since before you became pregnant, and still be employed by them 15 weeks before the baby’s due. maternity pay is 90% of your average earnings. For the next 33 weeks, it’s 90% of your average earnings or £140.98 per week, whichever’s lower.
ONLY fathers/partners who are employees are eligible for paternity leave. You’ll also need to have worked continuously for your employer for 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the baby’s due, and still be employed by the employer on the day the child is born. You can choose when to take your leave, in a period between the birth and 56 days after, for one or two consecutive weeks. Statutory Paternity Pay (SPP) is paid at £140.98 per week (or 90% of average earnings, whichever’s lower).
ONLY parents who are employees can take SPL, and the other parent must also have some recent work history (which could be self-employed or employed).
SPL can be taken at any time during the first year of the baby’s life, but there are two weeks of compulsory maternity leave which the mother must take. There are a maximum of 50 weeks of leave and 37 weeks of pay that may be shared. SPL is created by the mother curtailing her maternity leave and/or pay, so the father/ partner can take the balance. It’s paid at the flat rate of £140.98 (or