Shared parental leave for Grandparents

In 2016 the government are intending to consult on proposals to extend shared parental leave to grandparents and are aiming to implement the proposals by 2018. This will only affect working grandparents as non-working grandparents are unlikely to meet the eligibility criteria.

Comment

This is in line with the government’s initiative to enable individuals to remain in work and give them as much flexibility as possible. It will be interesting to see how it will work with grandparents who either work part time or on a zero hour contract as the consultation was initiated on the basis of evidence accumulated which suggested that nearly 2 million grandparents have given up work, reduced their hours or taken time off to help cut down childcare costs.

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