Parents of children aged under six, or of disabled children aged under eighteen, have the right to apply to work flexibly providing they have continuous service of more than 26 weeks when they make their application. It is not applicable to agency workers of members of the armed forces. Only one application will be considered in a twelve-month period.

Employee's have a responsibility to think carefully about their desired working pattern when considering making an application and what effect this might have on the organisation.

Employers are required to follow a specific procedure and timescales to ensure applications to work flexibly are considered seriously. You will need to check your organisations process to find out what you are required to do.

The right does not provide an automatic right to work flexibly, as there will always be circumstances when the employer is unable to accommodate the employee's desired work pattern.

By working flexibly it means that the employee can request a change in hours that they work (i.e. full time to part time), to work different hours to the ones they work (i.e. start earlier or finish later), or to work from home.

If your application is refused then the employer will have to provide a written notification and explanation as to why and detail how you can appeal against the decision.

For more information check out http://www.tiger.gov.uk/flexible/index.htm

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