Parental leave is the right for parents to take time off work to look after a child or make arrangements for the child's welfare. Parents can use it to spend more time with children and strike a better balance between their work and family commitments.

It is available to employees who have, or expect to have, parental responsibility for a child.

To be eligible, employees generally have to have one year's continuous service with their current employer. However, special rules apply for parents of children born, or placed for adoption, before 14 December 1999. They will be eligible for parental leave from their current employer if they completed one year's continuous service with another employer between 15 December 1998 and 9 January 2002.

You get 13 weeks in total for each child (so if twins 26 weeks). Parents of disabled children get 18 weeks in total.

You can take parental leave in short or long blocks depending on what has been agreed where you work, (for the purposes of parental leave a "disabled child" is one for whom an award of disability living allowance has been made).

As long as they give the correct notice to their employer, parents are able to take parental leave at any time up to the cut off point which applies to them:

Parents of children born between 15 December 1994 and 14 December 1999 can take leave up to 31 March 2005

Parents of children born on or after 15 December 1999 can take leave up to their child's 5th birthday

Adoptive parents of children placed for adoption between 15 December 1994 and 14 December 1999 can take leave up to 31 March 2005 (or the child's 18th birthday if that is sooner)

Adoptive parents of children placed for adoption on or after 15 December 1999 can take leave up to the fifth anniversary of the date of placement (or the child's 18th birthday if that is sooner)

Parents of disabled children from any of these categories can take leave up to their child's 18th birthday

You are guaranteed the right to return to the same job as before if the leave was for a period of four weeks or less; if it was for a longer period the employee is entitled to return to the same job, or, if that is not reasonably practicable, a similar job which has the same or better status, terms and conditions as the old job.

When parental leave follows maternity leave, the general rule is that you are entitled to return to the same job you had before. If at the end of additional maternity leave, this would not have been reasonably practicable, and it is still not reasonably practicable at the end of parental leave, you are entitled to return to a similar job which has the same/better status, terms and conditions as the old job.

Employers and employees can agree their own procedures for taking parental leave (either by workforce or collective agreements or individual arrangements. Any of these agreements will apply to an employee only if it is part of the employee's contract of employment.

If there is no agreement in place the following will automatically apply.

In most cases, leave must be taken in blocks or multiples of one week; The exception to the above is that parents of disabled children can take leave in blocks or multiples of one day;

In all cases a maximum of four weeks' parental leave in a year can be taken in respect of any individual child; 21 days' notice must be given;

The employer can postpone the leave for up to six months where the business would be particularly disrupted if the leave were taken at the time requested;

Leave cannot be postponed when the employee gives notice to take it immediately after the time the child is born or is placed with the family for adoption.

An employer can ask to see evidence to confirm you are the parent or the person who is legally responsible for the child. The employer's request must be reasonable; it may not be reasonable for him to check on the employee's entitlement on every occasion on which leave is asked for.

In cases where the employee's child was born or adopted between 15 December 1994 and 14 December 1999 (between 15 December 1981 and 14 December 1999 for disabled children), an employer can ask to see evidence of service with a previous employer, where that period of service is being used in determining entitlement to parental leave.

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