Work and Families, Choice and Flexibility
Comments from ACCA
May 2005
ACCA is pleased to comments on the above consultation document. ACCA is a professional accountancy body which represents over 50,000 qualified accountants in the UK and roughly the same number overseas. The majority of our members either work in SMEs or provide accountancy, audit and other professional services to SMEs, so we have a particular perspective on the business concerns of that sector. Our comments in this letter have been prepared with the input of both practitioners and businesspeople.
The focus of our concerns in responding to the document is on the proposals to extend the current statutory right for employees to request flexible working arrangements. There seems to be a basic assumption in the document that �flexible working� is always a �good thing� for employees and society generally and that employers should be expected to contribute to the achievement of this goal.
It is unfair, in our view, for the Department to categorise employers which offer flexible arrangements as �good� employers, with the implication that those which cannot provide them, for what may be sound business reasons, as �bad� employers. This presumption seems to underpin the specific policy proposals on flexible working set out in the document. There also seems to be an overriding concern in the document to accommodate what are perceived to be individuals� wishes, without any corresponding acknowledgment of the responsibilities of workers to their employers or of the practical difficulties which the assertion of individual legal rights in this area can cause to employers.
In paragraph 5.3, the document states that many �good� employers are already offering flexible working hours to their staff. It has always been the case that, where an employer�s circumstances permit, enlightened working practices can work and can be mutually beneficial. Such practices have been in operation long before the current statutory rights were brought into effect in 2003. But the crucial element in making these arrangements work is the willingness of the employer to integrate them into his or her business practices. And though it may appear unfair to some, the reality is that larger employers are in a better position to accommodate and adapt to �flexible� absences than are smaller employers � an example of �good practice� referred to in the document is BT � and this reality should be recognised by the Government in considering its future plans. In particular, it needs to acknowledge that just because flexible arrangements may be possible and workable in larger firms, they should not necessarily be seen as the legal norm for smaller firms or for firms in all business sectors.
Where an employer is able to accommodate individual employees� personal wishes, as regards, for example, preferred shift times, working from home either permanently or part-time or reduced working hours, we accept that alternative arrangements can be successful. But not all employers will be in the position to conclude, freely, that they can afford to do without the work commitments which their individual workers had freely contracted to provide them with at the time of joining the firm. By no means all employers will be in a position, for example, to allow staff to work from home. Encouraging individual workers to choose their preferred shift times, purely because they are the parents of young children, could in certain circumstances also prove counterproductive in terms of workplace morale.
If, as the document points out, it is already the case that employers are showing a willingness to go beyond the current scope of the law (paragraph 5.7), why does this suggest to the Government that further changes to the law are necessary or desirable? Surely, it would be possible to draw from the quoted research that if employers are able to recognise freely that there would be benefit on both sides from entering into flexible working arrangements, they will be prepared to do so regardless of any requirement of the law. This conclusion does in fact appear to be adopted in paragraph 5.30, albeit to support a proposed extension of the current statutory right.
As regards the three options set out in paragraph 5.28 of the document for extending the current statutory rights, the purported benefits of the three alternatives are presented solely from the perspective of employees, with no real consideration or understanding of the effects that the proposals could have on employers. We believe this is an unfair and one-sided way to approach the issue. In our view it would be wholly unreasonable to raise the qualifying age threshold to 17, and do not believe that a strong case has been made for raising it to 9 or 12.
As stated above, we appreciate fully that �flexible� working arrangements can work successfully. We accept that, where circumstances allow, they can work to the mutual benefit of employer and worker. But we do not believe that employers should feel under legal pressure to agree to employee demands and we do not consider it helpful continually to raise employee expectations as to what they may be entitled to. Neither do we believe that it is healthy to encourage the development of a two-tier system whereby parents of young children (or even teenagers) enjoy legal rights which are not available to workers without children. We further consider that the Department should review the consistency of its current proposals with the principles adopted by the Better Regulation Task Force, which include the favouring of a �Think Small First� approach to regulation and the consideration of alternatives to legislation where that would be appropriate.
We suggest that the way forward should be for the Government and stakeholders to promote to employers the case for flexible working and to encourage them to consider how they might integrate such arrangements into their plans. This would turn the cause of flexible working into one which was positive and business-friendly and one not driven by legal rights and the threat of sanctions for non-compliance. An extra-statutory campaign to promote the cause of flexible working could also be more wide-ranging than the current statutory regime, and consider the possible benefits for employees in general and not solely for parents with children under a certain age.
The Government has this week invited suggestions for ways in which regulatory burdens on employers might be reduced. We suggest that a good start to this campaign would be for the Government to decide that no extension should be made to the current statutory rights.