Can an employee request flexible working to care for a disabled child?

The right to request

Yes. Since 6 April 2024 an employee can request flexible working from day one for any reason, including caring for a disabled child. You must decide within two months and may refuse only on one of eight business grounds. The right sits in the Employment Rights Act 1996, reshaped by the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023. It is a right to request a change to hours, times or place of work, not an automatic right to get it.

Your duties when a request lands

The employee can make up to two requests in any 12-month period. For each one you have two months to reach a decision, including any appeal, unless you agree a longer period with the employee. You must consult the employee before turning a request down, and the employee no longer has to explain what effect the change would have on the business. Handle every request the same way, whatever the reason behind it (Acas Code of Practice on flexible working requests).

The eight grounds for refusal

You can reject a request only where it is reasonable to do so on one or more of these business reasons:

• The burden of extra costs.
• A harmful effect on your ability to meet customer demand.
• An inability to reorganise work among existing staff.
• An inability to recruit more staff.
• A harmful effect on quality.
• A harmful effect on performance.
• Not enough work during the periods the employee proposes to work.
• Planned structural changes.

The qualifier the basic guidance misses

Because this employee is caring for a disabled child, the flexible working rules are not your only exposure. An unreasonable or poorly-justified refusal can be challenged as associative disability discrimination under the Equality Act 2010, meaning discrimination linked to the employee’s association with a disabled person. This can be direct (the principle in Coleman v Attridge Law) or indirect (accepted in Follows v Nationwide Building Society). The flexible working penalty is capped at eight weeks’ pay; Equality Act compensation is uncapped, so the discrimination risk is the larger one (Working Families).

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.