Help and Advice for Working Parents
Juggling the demands of a family and job can be a challenge, and finding the balance between the needs of your children and the requirements of your work can take time and effort to get right. However, the life of a working parent can be made much easier with the help of new regulations designed to help families, along with the support of a caring employer.
Parental Leave
Parents who have been employed by the same company for at least a year are entitled to a reasonable amount of unpaid time off work to spend with their child. Examples of parental leave include accompanying a child during a stay in hospital, settling your child into new childcare arrangements, or simply spending more time with your child during their early years.
You can take a total of up to 13 weeks' unpaid parental leave for each of your children up until their 5th birthday, although in most cases, you cannot take more than 4 weeks' leave for any one child in a year. In most schemes, parental leave must be taken in blocks of full weeks, so any odd days you might need here and there (for example, to take a child to the dentist) will probably need to be taken as holiday instead.
Emergency Leave
If there's a genuine childcare emergency and you need to take time off at short notice, your employer may let you take emergency leave (which may be paid or unpaid, depending on your employer). However, it's a good idea to try to have some sort of back up plan to deal with emergency childcare arrangements, such as an alternative childminder if your own childminder falls ill, or perhaps the mother of one of your child's friends would look after them both if the school is closed due to snow?
Flexible Working
Regulations that came into effect in July 2000 increased access to part-time work, and eliminated discrimination against part-time workers. If you're having trouble fitting the demands of your job around the needs of your family, then you may want to discuss your options with your employer, to see if you can arrange a more flexible way of working. This might involve:
- sabbatical (paid time away from your job)
- career break (unpaid time away from your job)
- teleworking (working from home)
- reduced hours (working part-time)
- term-time working
- job-sharing
- flexi-time (choosing when you work your hours - within set limits)
Financial Help for Working Parents
Childcare Tax Credits
You can get extra tax credits to help with up to 80% of the cost of approved or registered childcare; up to a maximum of £140 a week for one child, and £240 a week for two or more children. In order to qualify for Childcare Tax Credits, you usually have to work for at least 16 hours a week. The actual amount you receive depends on your income - the lower your income, the more tax credits you'll receive.
Childcare Vouchers
If you're employed, then you may be able to discuss with your employer the possibility of receiving childcare vouchers to help pay for childcare costs. These vouchers may be in addition to your salary, or (more commonly) you may be required to make a 'salary sacrifice', thus agreeing to a reduction to your taxable salary, and receiving that amount in childcare vouchers instead.
However, the first £55 per week (or £243 per month) of these childcare vouchers is exempt from National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and from tax. This results in a saving of more than £800 a year for a lower level tax-payer, and as each employed parent can claim the exemptions, a two-parent family could save more than £1,600 or more than £2,000 a year (higher tax bracket).
Childcare vouchers can be used to pay for any form of Ofsted registered or approved childcare, including childminders, nurseries and playschemes, out of hours clubs run by a school on the school premises and childcare given in the child's own home by a nurse or domiciliary worker from an agency registered under the Domiciliary Care Agencies Regulations 2002.
Qualifying childcare does not include care provided by a relative of the child, unless the relative is a registered or approved childcare provider, the care is also provided to non-related children, and the care is provided away from the child's own home.
