More than nine out of ten dads with children aged five or under believe it is important that fathers have the option to take paid paternity leave. And nearly two thirds believe that a dad’s relationship with their baby will suffer if they are not at home after the birth.

But it is not just fathers with young children who want to be involved. More than half of dads with children aged under 16 said that flexible working was an important aspect when choosing a new job.

However, while these findings show how important it is to fathers to spend time with their family, the poll found that there is still a lot of confusion over what rights fathers have in the workplace.

The survey revealed that:

• a fifth of dads with kids aged 16 or under - who, by law, are entitled to request flexible working from their employer - did not know if their company offered flexible working to fathers

• a third of dads with children aged 5 and under did not realised that paid paternity leave is a legal right

• nearly a quarter assumed that they only need to ask for paternity leave when the baby is born. In fact, to benefit from legal paternity rights, fathers must speak with their employer 15 weeks before the baby is due.

The research comes as the Government launches a campaign, called “Dads at Work” to raise awareness among dads of their rights at work to help them care for their child. Employment Relations Minister Lord Young said: “We know that rights for dads at work are valued by people and that businesses also see real benefits in offering them. But our research shows that there are still some dads out there that are not aware of what they are entitled to and therefore risk missing out.

“Our campaign is all about making sure dads know what they can do and to help them have more confidence as they weigh up what works best for them and their family. The key is to talk to their employer.”

Fathers are entitled to:

• Request flexible working if they have a child aged 16 or under. (Prior to April 2009 this right was only available to fathers with children under 5.) Flexible working includes flexi-time, part-time or working from home. By law, an employer must seriously consider the request.

• Paid paternity leave. New dads can take two weeks’ statutory paternity leave, introduced in 2003. They need to notify their employer 15 weeks before the due date. It is currently paid at £123.06 per week.)

• Parental leave. Fathers with more than one year’s service with an employer have the right to take up to 13 weeks unpaid parental leave until their child is five years old.

• From April 2011 the Government is introducing a new right to Additional Paternity leave for fathers of babies due on or after 3 April 2011. This will give fathers a right to take up to six months extra leave which can be taken in the second six months of the child’s life once the mother has returned to work. Some of the leave may be paid if taken during the mother’s maternity pay period. This will be paid at the same standard rate as SPP which is currently £123.06.

More information is available at www.directgov.uk/dadsatwork.

Coming into force from April 2011, the time off can be taken during the second half of a baby’s first year if the mother returns to the workplace. At the moment, mothers can take nine months paid maternity leave, and a further three months unpaid. The new scheme will mean that if mothers return to work after six months, fathers can take the following six months as paternity leave, half of which will be paid.

Gordon Brown said the plan was about “giving couples more freedom, dads more rights and children more time with the two people who love them most”.

Since April 2003, fathers have been entitled to take two weeks’ paid leave, but the Government has conceded that take-up is likely to be low, with less than one in 16 fathers expected to leave work for a period of full-time childcare.

Ministers tried to reassure small businesses that the impact will be minimal, with less than 1% expected to be affected by the changes. But the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) were reported by the Daily Telegraph to have expressed concern about the costs to business during the economic downturn.

Quite why names have been changed to protect the unreconstructed father Tom (”‘I’m a man, therefore I don’t do childcare … That’s what my wife does.”) I can’t quite imagine.

Although fathers want to take a more active role in caring for their children, four in 10 say they spend too little time with their children.

Forty-five per cent of dads fail to take two weeks’ paternity leave after the birth of their child; the the most common reason is that they can’t afford to. Two in five men fear that asking for flexible working arrangements would result in their commitment to their job being questioned and would negatively affect their chances of a promotion.

The report also points to an opportunity for employers to gain a competitive advantage in recruitment, as two in three fathers consider the availability of flexible working to be important when looking for a new job.

One approach to balancing work and family commitments outlined in the report is to expand paternity and parental leave schemes. The Commission has previously outlined a series of fully costed policies that would help to meet the needs of businesses and modern families as part of its Working Better Initiative.

It included fathers having:

• two weeks’ paternity leave at the birth of their child at 90 per cent pay

• four months of dedicated ‘parental leave’ with at least eight weeks of leave being at 90 per cent pay

• another four months’ parental leave - that can be taken by either mother or father – eight weeks of which is taken at 90 per cent pay.

Andrea Murray, Acting Group Director Strategy from the Equality and Human Rights Commission said, “It is clear that today’s families require a modern approach to balancing work and childcare commitments. Fathers are telling us they are not spending enough time with their families and want to take a more active role in shaping the lives of their children.

“We have spoken to parents, employers, unions and leading academic experts in the field, and we believe that our Working Better policies lay out a road-map to 2020 which will put Britain ahead of the curve in terms of modern working practices.

“Two-thirds of fathers see flexible working as an important benefit when looking for a new job. This highlights an opportunity for British businesses to use flexible working as an incentive for attracting and retaining the most talented of employees. Some companies which have adopted forward thinking policies towards families are reporting increased productivity, reduction in staff turnover, reduced training costs and an ability to respond better to customer requirements.”

The existing arrangements for paternity leave are that fathers can take two weeks’ statutory paternity pay paid at a maximum of £123.06 per week. There is also a proposal that by 2011 fathers will be able to take another six months’ paternity – three months at the statutory rate of pay and three months’ unpaid – so long as the mother gives up her extra six months of maternity leave.

Some other key findings of the report are:

• Six in 10 fathers said they worked more than 40 hours a week

• Half of fathers believed they spent too much time at work

• Nearly six in 10 fathers agreed with the statement that partners can share work/career and childcare equally

• Although flexible working was available to half of fathers, only 30 per cent were actually using it

• 56 per cent of fathers who took paternity leave said that taking time off around the birth of their child led to them taking a greater role in caring for their children, while 69 per cent said it led to improvements in family life

• Of those who did not take paternity leave, two thirds said they would have liked to ‘a lot’. The most common reason provided for not doing so was being unable to afford to take the time off.

• 61 per cent of fathers supported the idea of an additional four weeks paid leave that would be reserved solely for the father. With 55 per cent saying they would take this kind of leave if it was available.

The EHRC report draws on a 2008-2009 YouGov quantitative survey of 4,500 parents in England, Wales and Scotland of children aged under 16, and is supported by qualitative data from several online forums involving a wide range of groups of fathers.

An organisation called Working Families has put together a manifesto to promote flexible working practices in the workplace.

Their theme is that flexible working is better for families - and better for business - and argues that now we have legislation to support it we should be moving more quickly towards a more modern and better balanced way of working.

Photograph at http://www.guardian.co.uk

Interesting article in the Guardian on Saturday 14 February by Julia Hobsbawm arguing that traditional nine-to-five working practices won’t dig us out of this deep recession. She says it is time to embrace a new ‘-ism’ that she coins ‘flexibilism’ in the workplace.

“Britain remains a laggard in the league table of productivity,” she writes. “Corporate Britain has known for nearly a decade about the benefits of flexible working. Five years ago the Work Foundation published a study, Productivity, Performance & People, which concluded that a motivated workforce working flexibly to suit employee and employer alike would deliver more for Britain’s businesses than a century of old-style, rigid hours.”

She has a book out, The See-Saw: 100 Ideas for Work Life Balance, Atlantic Books, £6.99.

While all men are entitled to paternity leave, taking it can often damage their careers. Elin Darby fears her partner could lose his job after taking time out to care for their baby.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/jan/17/paternity-rights

Plans to extend paid maternity and paternity leave are also under threat as the new Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is reconsidering all new regulations in the light of the economic downturn.

The flexible working scheme was due to be extended to 4.5m parents of children up to the age of 16 from next April.

At the moment the right to ask for flexible working is limited to parents whose children are under six or disabled.

The extension was announced earlier this year following the recommendations of an independent review.

Too many parents who wish to nurture their children at home
for the first few years are being forced back to work by
financial pressures when their children are babies, according to
a report published today by a think-tank chaired by the former
Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith.

It calls for a raft of new measures designed to give families
“genuine choice” over whether mothers or fathers stay at
home when their children are very young and in need of
intensive nurturing and attention.

They include front-loading child benefit in the first three years
of life and changes to the tax and benefits system to boost
family income.

The report warns that much of today’s violent and anti-social
behaviour by young people can be traced back to parental
neglect when children are very young.

A mounting body of scientific and sociological research shows
that the foundations of happy and healthy lives are laid down in
the early years of life by the formation of a close bond between
parent and child.

But this critical finding is being overlooked by Government and
society at large which prioritises paid work over child-rearing.
Opinion polling conducted by YouGov for the Centre for
Social Justice also reveals widespread public support for a
fundamental rethink of family policy.

A staggering 88 per cent of parents and 82 per cent of adults
think that more should be done to help parents who wish to
stay at home and bring up their children when they are babies
and toddlers.

And 81 per cent of parents said that financial pressures were
the main reason why they or their partner returned to work
after their children were born.

The survey of nearly 3,000 expectant parents or parents and
over 2,000 adults found that around 70 per cent believed that
parents were encouraged to put their children into day care
and go back to work too soon.

Mr Duncan Smith commented: “We need to level the financial
playing field for parents. The current system pressurises
mothers – and it is mostly mothers – into going back to work
soon after their children are born.

“Yet the research shows clearly that the seeds of later
unhappiness and anti-social behaviour by young people are
often sown by the failure of parents to form a close and loving
relationship with their babies.

“Society is paying a high price for the quick fix of getting
mothers back to work so soon after birth.

“We need a fairer system in which the financial sacrifice of
giving up work to look after a baby is offset by extra help from
the tax and benefits system.”

The findings of “The Next Generation” – a report from a
commission on the early years set up by Mr Duncan Smith –
represent a direct challenge to Government policy and much
accepted thinking and practice about child-rearing.

The report is concerned that Labour’s Sure Start programme,
which was set up with the right intentions, has become patchy
and in too many parts of the country has moved from being
about support for parents in child-rearing into back-to-work
child care.

The commission, chaired by family researcher Dr Samantha
Callan, calls for an urgent reappraisal of the importance of the
first three years of life to the successful psychological and
physical development of a child.

Society is storing up trouble for the future by failing to
appreciate the importance of the relationship between parent
and infant for the child’s future well-being.

The report warns: “A compelling body of research indicates
that children’s experiences in the earliest years of their lives
strongly influence their futures across a wide range of
measures.

“Policy is currently focused on dealing with the consequences
of early adversity (neglect, abuse and dysfunction) which are
strongly implicated in the dramatic increases in young people’s
alcohol and drug use and mental health problems and in
youthful knife and gun crime.

“The most effective intervention strategy therefore requires
helping parents to get it right at the antenatal, postnatal and
infant stages, long before such help is typically available.

“We have been trying to address the issue of troubled children
and young people for decades, with little positive change. The
problem persists and appears to be growing, as illustrated by
rising levels and severity of youth crime.

“Current government initiatives appear to be focused far more
on intervention than prevention.

“A key conclusion of our report is that these issues have been
so difficult to resolve because, until now, we have never
properly understood or acknowledged their root causes.

“We have stuck rigidly to attempts to change behaviour but
this is an outcome or product of an individual’s state of
emotional and social health and well-being. So for genuine
change to take place, it has to occur in these areas.

“This perspective is based on the last decade’s consistent and
significant body of psychological and brain science research,
which identifies the key component in our capacity to function
as emotionally and physically able human beings as the quality of
our relationships and specifically those in our earliest years.

“Without sufficient calming, soothing and emotion regulating
interactions from parents and other significant adults, the
stress response systems in the infant brain, which are
extremely sensitive to adverse postnatal experience, can
become hypersensitive.

“ An infant can grow up unable to handle stress well and adopt
a generally long-term defensive reaction to people and events.
He or she can be persistently on the look out for threat, prone
to anxiety, depression and anger, both in childhood and later
life.

“In contrast when infants are consistently met with attuned and
responsive kindness, calm and compassion, the brain’s prosocial
systems, key for capacity for empathy and concern,
develop…”

Among the 11 policy recommendations of the report are the
following:

* Genuine choice for families in paid work and childcare, with a
change in the rules to allow the use of childcare tax credit to
pay un-registered close relatives (albeit at a lower rate) to
reflect parents’ preferences, and location, where possible, of
childcare outside Children’s Centres. This would free them up
to concentrate on delivering family support services and create
a more level playing field for private, voluntary and independent
sector nurseries.

* Front-loading child benefit, making it flexible so that a larger
proportion of the child’s total entitlement would be available
during the first three years when parents most want to spend
time caring for their children and when attachment and
intensive nurture are most important.

This would be linked where necessary to ameliorative services
such as intensive parenting support, to greatly improve the life
chances of children most likely to experience deficits in
parental care.

* Transferable tax allowances, which reflect the fact that if one
spouse is not working outside the home that family requires
more, not less, support from the tax system.
Similarly the benefits system should not penalise low income
couples who want to live together which requires tackling the
‘couple penalty.’

Men will soon be given the right to ask for more leave to look after their children. About time too, says Virginia Ironside

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-truth-about-daddy-day-care-875705.html