Bill supports flexible parental leave

Plans enabling parents to choose how to share up to 12 months of leave to look after newborn children are being unveiled by the Government.

Parents will have more flexibility over mix-and-match care of their young ones in the first year after birth, under the Children and Families Bill. The Bill is aimed at letting fathers have a bigger part in child-raising and to help mothers go back to work when it is best for them. Parents, under the reforms, would be able to take leave in turns or together as long as they had no more than 52 weeks off combined.

Other changes in the Bill cover adoption reforms, family justice, special educational needs, and child-minder agency plans. The Government wants more adoptions by loving families with fewer delays, as children wait nearly two years on average between entering care and moving in with an adoptive family. More support for these families is planned under the Bill which also has the aim of making sure that a search for a perfect or partial ethnic match does not prevent finding a parent for a child.

Vicky Preece, Senior Solicitor in IBB’s Childcare team comments:

“There are some good policy changes which will be brought in by the Children and Families Bill, particularly trying to speed up the adoption process once the decision has been made that adoption is in the child’s best interests.

“The attempt to prevent further delay in Care proceedings is also admirable; however all concerned parties need to ensure that the aspiration to complete Care proceedings within 26 weeks does not lead to delay in Local Authorities issuing proceedings where this is necessary – either by keeping children in foster care under voluntary arrangements with parents without review by the Court, or by giving ‘failing families’ repeat chances whilst social workers struggle to prepare documentation to support proceedings – as the effect of this would be disguised delay and would not benefit the children concerned.”

If you have a family or childcare law issue please contact IBB’s Childcare Solicitors to arrange a meeting, call us on 01895 207857.