3. Flexible working: the legal position

Employees who want to make a request to work from home some or all of the time will need to be familiar with the law on flexible working.

The law changed on 30 June 2014, when the right to ask to work flexibly was extended to all employees in England, Scotland and Wales who have at least 26 weeks’ continuous service with their employer. There is no longer a requirement to be caring for children or dependent adults. Instead anyone with enough service can make a request.

Acas has produced a Code of Practice: Handling Requests to Work Flexibly in a Reasonable Manner (the Acas Code). As the Acas Code is statutory, an employment tribunal would expect an employer to have followed it. There is also a separate Acas guide, The right to request flexible working, which details some useful examples. This is non-statutory, but suggests best practice. Both can be downloaded from the Acas website at: www.acas.org.uk/flexibleworking.

The right is to ask to work flexibly. It is not a right to work flexibly. The right itself is found in section 80F Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 96). Employees can ask for:

• a change to working hours (for example, from full to part-time);

• a change to working times (for example, starting and finishing later or working compressed hours); or

• the right to work some or all of the time from home.