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Has woman who was working full time before taking Maternity leave the right to return to her job on a part time basis?

Parents of children under the age of six or disabled children under the age of eighteen have the right to apply to their employer to work more flexibly. The request can cover hours of work, times of work and place of work and may include requests for different patterns of work.

The request must be made in writing and the employer has a statutory duty to consider the request seriously and to refuse it only if there are clear business grounds for doing so.

The Work and Families Act also introduces a new right for carers of adults to request to work flexibly. This is effective from 6 April 2007.

Hope so this will help you but Ian can elaborate more in this issue.

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Thanks for that.
Can a woman apply for flexible working while she is still on Maternity leave or does she have to return to work and then apply?

The maternity, paternity and adoption leave legislation is written to ensure that the the employee's original job, or in some cases an equivalent job, is still available on return from leave. If the original job was full-time, the job on return is also full-time. The employee should not lose out as a result of the family leave.

The right to request a contract variation, or "flexible working" as it is more commonly known, recognises that the returning employee now has new responsibilities and may not wish to work full-time any longer, or may prefer to work different days, or different hours, or even at home. As Keyur describes, the employer has to consider a request to change the contract seriously and, indeed, the employee must also make the request seriously. If the employer agrees to the change, it is a permanent change to the contract unless the employer later agrees to another change. The employer does not have to agree to make any changes and there is nothing the employee can do if the employer follows the statutory procedures properly and honestly but, at the end, decides that the contract cannot be varied.

There is no statutory reason why an employee should not make a variation request while still on leave - if the procedure can be followed before the return and agreement reached, the employee can then return to the varied job.

You can find more information on the procedure that needs to be followed at the following link:-

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/ ... G_10029491

Employees who are responsible for caring for a child who is under 6 years old (or under 18 years old if the child has a disability) can apply to change their hours, times and location of work, providing they have 26 weeks continuous service with the employer at the date of request.