Letter confirming or postponing carer’s leave

Where an employee has given notice of their intention to take unpaid carer’s leave for the purpose of providing or arranging care for a dependant with a long-term care need, you can follow this up with our letter.

Follow-up step

Assuming an employee is eligible to take carer’s leave, they’ve complied with the notice requirements and they haven’t already exhausted their statutory entitlement, you can follow their notice up by sending them our Letter Confirming or Postponing Carer’s Leave. Our letter assumes they’ve duly completed and submitted our Carer’s Leave Form to give notice of their intention to take carer’s leave.

Confirming carer’s leave

Where you accept the employee’s request for carer’s leave on the dates they’ve notified, our letter simply: (1) explicitly confirms those dates; (2) sets out the position on pay – we’ve given you the option to provide either that the leave is unpaid, which is the statutory default position, or that you’ll continue to pay their basic salary on a discretionary basis (you don’t have to do this); (3) confirms the application of their terms and conditions of employment during carer’s leave; and (4) advises them of their maximum carer’s leave entitlement if they’ve only applied to take part of their entitlement on this occasion. For any further period of carer’s leave requested, they can again complete our form.

Postponing carer’s leave

You can’t decline an employee’s request for carer’s leave, but you can postpone it by up to a month. The legislation says that you may postpone carer’s leave where you reasonably consider that the operation of your business would be unduly disrupted if the employee took carer’s leave during the period identified in their notice. To postpone carer’s leave, you must alternatively agree to permit the employee to take a period of carer’s leave which is of the same duration as the period originally identified in their notice and begins on a date that you determine after consulting with them, but this must be no later than one month after the earliest date of their original request for carer’s leave. You must also give the employee a notice in writing of the postponement which: (1) states the reason for the postponement; and (2) sets out the agreed dates that they can now take carer’s leave. This notice must be given to the employee as soon as reasonably practicable but not later than the earlier of: (1) seven days after their notice was given to you; or (2) before the earliest date requested in their notice. Our letter therefore also includes the option for you to postpone the employee’s requested carer’s leave in compliance with these statutory provisions. Do bear in mind that you’ll first need to consult with the employee to come up with an alternative agreed date (or dates) for their carer’s leave; you can’t just unilaterally impose a new date on them. So, have a brief meeting with the employee first. You can do this by telephone if needs be.