On 6^th April 2024, this new piece of legislation came into effect with the aim of supporting those who have unpaid care responsibilities.

It's estimated that around 10 million people in the UK have unpaid caring responsibilities with 62% reporting that they had little or no choice about taking on the care responsibilities as there was no other option available (Carers Week Report 2024 (carersuk.org)). 

In terms of Carers Leave, the term 'unpaid care responsibilities' is intended to describe those who care for a dependant when it's expected that their care will exceed 3 months.

A dependant does not have to be a family member or indeed living at the same address, it includes anyone who replies on the individual for care.

The care could be for a physical or mental illness or injury or could be due to a disability or care because of old age.

In a Nutshell:

• Leave of up to a total of 1 week in a rolling 12 month period - 1 week means the length of time that they normally work in a week – so 3 days for someone normally working 3 days
• To be eligible the employee has to be providing long term care – there is no requirement for the employee to provide evidence
• Employees can only take 1 week of leave and not 1 week for each person they provide long term care for
• Leave can be requested from day one of employment.
• The leave can be taken in half or full days or as a whole week block
• Notice period for leave is the greater of 3 days or twice the time off i.e. 8 days notice for 4 days leave
• There is no right to payment for the leave, so unless you wish to make payment, the time off will be unpaid.
• You can't refuse Carers Leave but you can delay for up to one month if their absence would cause serious disruption to the organisation

What action do you need to take?

• If its something that you want to advertise to your team, then go ahead!
• Make sure your line managers area aware of the new right so if they get a request, its not missed
• Think about your time off request procedures and if appropriate add in Carers Leave as an option
• As this is a statutory right, there's no need to have a separate policy unless you want one.

As mentioned above this is a day one right so anyone can make a request from as early as the first day of their employment.

A point worthy of note is that there's also no service requirement for an employee to attempt to make a claim for discrimination so be wary about indirectly discriminating against an individual because of their care needs (discrimination by association).

Further information on Carers Leave can be found on the government website (link below) and as always, give me a call to discuss further!