These Regulations amend the Flexible Working (Eligibility, Complaints and Remedies) Regulations 2002 (S.I. 2002/3236) (“the 2002 Regulations”) to widen the scope of the statutory right for employees to request a contract variation, which previously applied to carers of children under 6 or disabled children under 18, to cover employees who care for certain adults.

This right is provided for in the Employment Rights Act 1996 (“the 1996 Act”), as amended by the Work and Families Act 2006.

Regulation 3 amends the definitions in regulation 2(1) of the 2002 Regulations. Those amendments define or redefine ‘partner’, ‘relative’ and ‘special guardian’. The definition of ‘disabled’ has been removed by the Work and Families Act 2006 from the relevant section of the 1996 Act and is now contained in the Regulations but has not been amended.

Regulation 4 makes technical amendments to the 2002 Regulations, and also inserts special guardian into the list of those eligible to make a request to care for a child.

Regulation 5 provides that an employee making a request to care for a child needs to do so before the child is six or, where the child is disabled, eighteen.

Regulation 5 also sets out the eligibility criteria to enable an employee to make a request to care for an adult. Those criteria are that the employee must have 26 weeks’ qualifying service, and that the adult is in need of care and is married to, the partner or civil partner or a relative of the employee or is living at the same address as the employee.

A Regulatory Impact Assessment of the costs and benefits of these Regulations to business has been placed in the libraries of both Houses of Parliament. Copies are available to the public from the Employment Relations Directorate, Department of Trade and Industry, 1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET. The Assessment is also accessible at the Directorate’s website on www.dti.gov.uk/files/file35189.pdf.