Parental Leave policy for public servants

Show all updates

Version	Description of change	Reason for change	Date approved
3.1	Scope: Zero hours employees are eligible for statutory 6 weeks, paid at an average of the preceding 12 weeks	To comply with Jersey employment legislation, where zero hours are eligible for parental leave
	Scope: Amended as policy applies to those on UK training agreements such as Junior Doctors	Policy applies to all Government and States of Jersey employees, including junior doctors, who are required to follow Jersey employment legislation whilst based in Jersey
	Scope now includes those on variable contracts of employment	To ensure certain groups on variable contracts of employment qualify for parental leave
	Antenatal appointments time unlimited for pregnant employees	Previous policy was capped at 10 hours for pregnant employees. Corrected in line with employment law
	Terms and conditions (sickness)	Clarity that sick leave affects sick pay entitlement
3.2	Amend Chief People and Transformation Officer to Chief People Officer	Change in role title	August 2024
3.3	Scope: Separated a sentence to make it clearer that fostering to adopt is not in scope	To ensure clarity	October 2024

Show all updates

Version	Description of change	Reason for change	Date approved
3.1	Scope: Zero hours employees are eligible for statutory 6 weeks, paid at an average of the preceding 12 weeks	To comply with Jersey employment legislation, where zero hours are eligible for parental leave
	Scope: Amended as policy applies to those on UK training agreements such as Junior Doctors	Policy applies to all Government and States of Jersey employees, including junior doctors, who are required to follow Jersey employment legislation whilst based in Jersey
	Scope now includes those on variable contracts of employment	To ensure certain groups on variable contracts of employment qualify for parental leave
	Antenatal appointments time unlimited for pregnant employees	Previous policy was capped at 10 hours for pregnant employees. Corrected in line with employment law
	Terms and conditions (sickness)	Clarity that sick leave affects sick pay entitlement
3.2	Amend Chief People and Transformation Officer to Chief People Officer	Change in role title	August 2024
3.3	Scope: Separated a sentence to make it clearer that fostering to adopt is not in scope	To ensure clarity	October 2024

Introduction

This document comes in two parts.

Part one sets out the Jersey public services policy and principles regarding parental leave.

Part two provides the procedure, setting out how to implement the policy with links to toolkit items to give you more information. The procedure is intended as a guide only and may change or be varied from time to time.

Title	Parental Leave
Author	Employee Experience
Document Type	Policy and procedure
Issue date	10 January 2024
Effective date	1 October 2024
Review date	31 December 2025
Version	3.3

This policy supersedes all previous policies, circulars and procedures connected with parental leave within the Public Service.

Code of practice and policy family

This policy forms part of the code of practice for Employee rights at work. This code will be reviewed at the start of each term of States Employment Board, or earlier where relevant legislation or regulations change.

Policy Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to provide information and guidance about the Jersey public services approach dealing with parental leave.

This parental leave policy and procedure incorporates:

adoption leave
maternity leave
paternity leave
surrogacy leave

It also provides procedural guidance on time off for antenatal care, pre adoption appointments and breastfeeding.

The policy also ensures our compliance with relevant employment legislation.

Policy Principles

All our policies are underpinned by our values and behaviours.

This policy and procedure aim to:

ensure everyone is treated in a fair, consistent, and equal manner, free from discrimination and victimisation
be clearly written, easy to understand and apply
ensure our compliance with the Employment (Jersey) Law 2003, Discrimination (Jersey) Law 2013 and other relevant legislation and regulations

Jersey public service is wholly supportive of putting children first and has developed this policy entitlement with this at the forefront of our minds. We want to give our employees, who are new parents quality, paid time off as a family.

This policy ensures that if you are about to become a new parent, you can take parental leave from your role to focus entirely on your family, giving peace of mind that you can return to work if you wish, at the end of your parental leave.

Our policy provides public servants, who have become new parents, up to 52 weeks parental leave, with the first 20 weeks paid. You also have adequate paid time off work to attend antenatal appointments and appointments associated with an adoption once you have been notified of the match.

Policy Scope

This policy applies to all Jersey public servants on permanent, non-permanent and variable contracts of employment whether they are:

birth parents
adoptive parents
those in a qualifying relationship with the birth parent or mother including intended surrogate parents
the host mother of a child for the post-natal period only and for no other period

The 6 weeks statutory entitlement applies to employees on a zero hours contract.

Whilst this is a Government of Jersey policy, it applies to all employed by the States Employment Board. Any references to the States of Jersey means the wider, non-executive arm of government.

This policy does not apply to:

those working on a contract for service as an interim, locum, self-employed or agency basis
voluntary staff
those on honorary contracts where there is no implied contract of employment
a step-parent adopting their partner's child
those adopting a child that they have been fostering immediately before

Performance and key accountabilities

All of us

Complying with the terms of this policy and giving a line manager notice of periods of parental leave, to ensure operational cover is in place.

Line managers

'Our managers are role models, set clear standards and are supportive' (People Strategy Commitment – Your Experience). As a line manager, you are responsible for modelling our values and behaviour. You set the tone for your team and across the organisation.

Our people strategy

You are responsible for familiarising yourself with this policy and understanding your role in the procedure, particularly responding swiftly. You are also responsible for undertaking any relevant management training or briefing session related to this policy or people management generally.

You must ensure that your team are aware of the support measures available to them and be mindful of general team wellbeing.

Chief People and Transformation Officer

You are the custodian of all Government of Jersey people policies.

You will ensure that this policy and its procedure are implemented using appropriate communication methods, to aid organisation wide awareness, in order that responsibilities can be fulfilled.

You will ensure that reviews take place in line with the schedule in the policy control sheet and that development of this policy and procedure is in keeping with the Corporate Policy Framework, People Policy guidelines and our People Strategy.

Chief Executive Officer, Chief Officers and Heads of Administration

You are accountable for familiarising yourself with:

our 6 Codes of Practice
this policy and procedure

You are responsible for ensuring line managers and employees within your department carry out their responsibilities, as set out in this policy. This includes the notification and recording of  any breaches and upholding the spirit of the code of this policy and its procedure generally.

You are responsible for modelling and championing our values and ensuring that our organisations standards and expectations are communicated clearly and fully adopted by your department. You set the tone for the behaviours both within your department and across the organisation.

States Employment Board

The Board has a duty to issue Codes of Practice in accordance with Article 8 of the Employment of States of Jersey Employees (Jersey) Law 2005. This code will be reviewed at the start of each term of States Employment Board, or earlier where relevant legislation or regulations change.

The procedure

Employees are entitled to a total of 52 weeks parental leave, the entitlement, notification and application procedure are outlined below.

Entitlement

Statutory paid parental leave	Further paid parental leave	Further unpaid parental leave
6 weeks fully paid parental leave	14 weeks fully paid, pensionable pay only. Non-pensionable pay is excluded	32 weeks unpaid leave

Zero hours employees receive 6 weeks paid parental leave which is statutory entitlement. This is calculated as an average payment over the preceding 12 weeks.

Periods of parental leave

You can choose to take up to 52 weeks parental leave in:

no more than 3 separate periods
for no less than 2 weeks in the case of each paid period

Your periods of parental leave cannot begin earlier than the 11th week before the week in which childbirth or the placement for adoption is expected to happen and must be taken within 2 years from the date of the childbirth or date the adoption begins.

Additional information about parental leave entitlement

You can keep any parental leave benefit that is due to you from social security. We will not deduct the value of this benefit from your salary for the weeks of paid parental leave.

If you are employed on a fixed term contract and the termination date of that contract falls whilst you are on parental leave, then your parental leave will also terminate on that date.

Your line manager can ask for proof of your entitlement to parental leave in respect of the policy scope and who is entitled. This may include evidence in writing of the expected week of childbirth or adoption placement.

If you do not work the school holidays, for example you are a term time worker or a teacher, the entitlement of up to 52 weeks parental leave will include the holidays.

If you adopt more than one child as part of the same arrangement, where siblings are to be placed at same time with the same adopter, this policy will apply once to the arrangement as a whole. The same rule applies if a birth mother has twins.

Requirement to notify your line manager

In the case of childbirth

You should complete the online parental leave form and meet with your line manager to notify them no later than the end of the 15th week before your expected week of childbirth.

For example, the due date of the following:

the expected week of childbirth
the date on which you intend your initial period of parental leave to start
if you intend to take more than one period of parental leave
if yes, how many periods of parental leave you wish to take
the length of each period
the dates you intend each period of parental leave to end

In the case of an employee who is pregnant and has given birth, the paid parental leave must start from the date the child is born.

In the case of adoption

You should complete the online parental leave form and meet with your line manager to notify them no later than 7 days after you learn that you have been matched with a child for adoption, or in the case of an overseas adoption no later than 7 days after you learn of the date the child is likely to enter Jersey, to inform them of the following:

the date on which the child is likely to be placed with you
the date on which the child is likely to enter Jersey, in the case of an overseas adoption
the date on which you intend your initial period of parental leave to start
if you intend to take more than one period of parental
if yes, how many periods of parental leave you wish to take
the length of each period
the dates you intend each period of parental leave to end

If you have chosen to begin your parental leave on the date when the child is adopted or born and you are at work on that date, your parental leave must begin on the day after that date.

In the case of surrogacy

As intended parents, you should complete the online parental leave form and meet with your line manager to notify them no later than the end of the 15th week before your expected week of childbirth.

For example, the due date of the following:

the expected week of childbirth
the date on which you intend your initial period of parental leave to start
if you intend to take more than one period of parental leave
if yes, how many periods of parental leave you wish to take
the length of each period
the dates you intend each period of parental leave to end

To help with planning for your cover, if you are able to notify your line manager prior to this, then please do so.

For all of the above situations, when considering the date on which you intend your parental leave to start, if you are the birth mother, you should take account of any medical advice you may have received. Depending on the nature of your role and your duties, your line manager may need to take a risk assessment to safeguard your health and the health of your unborn baby. If potential risks are identified, then we will make any necessary reasonable adjustments to your role.

Once the people hub have received and processed the parental leave form, they will write to you to confirm the details of your parental leave, including the dates on which each period of your leave will end.

Apply for parental leave

Changing the start dates of any parental leave periods

If you decide to change the start date of any of your parental leave periods, you should give 6 weeks notice of the change, or if not reasonably practicable, as soon as possible.

We will take all reasonable steps to accommodate your request to change any of the original start dates of your parental leave periods submitted. Consideration such as cover that might have already been secured, implications in respect of other employees and the requirement that the second and third parental leave periods must take place within 2 years of the date of childbirth, or date the adoption begins will be taken account of.

We recognise, particularly in the case of adoption, that dates often change and are outside of your control and we will work with you to accommodate any such changes.

Transfer of paid weeks to the other parent

If both parents are employed by the Government of Jersey's public service you can, if you choose, transfer up to 14 paid weeks to one another, but not the unpaid weeks. Any transferred weeks will be paid at the salary of the parent who receives the additional weeks and this cost will be paid by the employing department of the parent who receives the transferred weeks.

You will not be able to transfer the initial 6 weeks paid leave, as this is a legal entitlement under the Employment (Jersey) Law 2003.

Nobody can take more than 52 weeks parental leave as each parent's legal entitlement remains capped at up to 52 weeks.

If you do wish to transfer parental leave you must both talk with your line managers as soon as possible about transferring the leave and giving the required notice period. This will help your line manager plan any cover required.

As the entitlement to transfer paid weeks is dependent on both parents being employed, in the event of your contract ending on a particular date, any untaken transferred weeks will cease on that date and will be removed.

Zero-hours arrangements

Zero hours employees are eligible for paid parental leave of 6 weeks. You must follow the same application procedure to notify your line manager of any parental leave dates. Calculations are made based on an average payment of the preceding 12 weeks.

Time-off for antenatal or pre-adoption appointments

You should give your line manager reasonable notice of these appointments. Your line manager will keep a log of the amount of time-off taken, this can be done in MyView.

Your line manager can ask to see confirmation of your appointments for example, the appointment card or another similar document.

In the case of childbirth

If you are pregnant, as the birth mother you are entitled to uncapped paid time-off to attend appointments in your pregnancy including antenatal appointments.

Entitlement to time off for antenatal care is restricted to appointments at the Ante-Natal Clinic at the General Hospital, or in your GP's surgery with your GP or midwife, it also includes any referral appointments made by your GP or midwife for the purposes of antenatal care. It does not cover complimentary therapies such as acupuncture.

In the case of adoption

You are entitled to up to 10 hours paid leave to attend meetings and official appointments related to the adoption once you have notified of the match for example to have contact with the child.

In the case of surrogacy

You are entitled to 10 hours paid leave to attend the antenatal appointments of your intended child.

If the surrogate mother is based in Jersey, entitlement to time off for antenatal care is restricted to appointments at the Ante-Natal Clinic at the General Hospital, or in her GP's surgery with the GP or midwife, it also includes any referral appointments made by her GP or midwife for the purposes of antenatal care. It does not cover complimentary therapies such as acupuncture.

If the surrogate mother is based off-Island and you need to travel to attend ante-natal appointments, such as the 12 and 20 week scan.

Premature and early birth

If your baby arrives earlier than the intended start date of your parental leave, then your parental leave will begin the day after the birth.

We recognise that occasionally a baby is born prematurely and requires specialist care, which is often provided off-Island. Sometimes the stay in specialist care can last for many months and the whole of the parental leave can be spent here. This can be a particularly stressful time for new parents. Line managers can email peopleconsultancyservices@gov.je to discuss any individual cases affected by situations like this. Our Be Supported helpline is available 24 hours 7 days a week on 0800 072 7072.

You are entitled to the provisions of this policy if childbirth occurs after 24 weeks. The provisions of this policy do not apply if you give birth, suffer a miscarriage or stillbirth before 24 weeks. Any absence from work in these circumstances will usually be treated as sickness absence.

Adoption and disruption to adoption

You will be given reasonable time off to attend interviews and official appointments in relation to the adoption once matching has been confirmed.

Although you are not entitled to paid time off for appointments or approval process prior to matching. If, however you do need support with this, you should speak to your line manager to discuss possible options to support you:

This includes:

flexible working options
changing shifts
starting later
finishing earlier
temporarily changing your working pattern informally

If the adoption is disrupted during the period of parental leave, your entitlement to parental leave will remain in place for 4 weeks from the date of disruption or until the end of your adoption leave period if that is sooner.

A disruption could be either where the adoption has commenced prior to the child's placement and the placement is subsequently not made, or where the adoption breaks down during the parental leave.

Your terms and conditions during parental leave

Your terms and conditions of employment should not be affected by your absence on parental leave. This means that you are also bound by your terms and conditions, our policies and codes of practice during your parental leave.

Annual Leave

You will continue to accrue annual leave during both the paid and unpaid elements of your parental leave.

Acting Up

Once parental leave commences, any acting up duty ceases and therefore so does any payment for acting up during this period of leave.

Sickness

If you are the birth mother, sickness absence related to your pregnancy will not be logged against our managing attendance indicators. As a medical certificate will be required, your absence will affect your full and half pay entitlement.

If you have any sickness absence, whether certified or not, during your period(s) of parental leave you are not entitled to contractual sick pay.

If your return to work at the end of your parental leave periods is prevented due to sickness you must provide your line manager with a medical certificate from your GP from the date you were due back to work. Depending on the circumstances of the absence, we would refer you to Occupational Health as soon as possible, with a view to an appointment as soon as one is available.

Bank or public holidays

For each bank or public holiday that falls during your parental leave, whether during the paid or unpaid element you are entitled to a paid day off in lieu.

Payment is made at 100% of salary because the lieu day is for the bank or public holiday and not an extra day of parental leave.

Entitlement to a paid day off in lieu if a bank or public holiday falls during your parental leave only applies if you would have normally worked that day. For example, if you work term time you would not be entitled to a paid day off in lieu of bank or public holidays that fall during the school holidays. This does not apply to teachers and teaching assistants.

In practice this means for:

bank or public holidays that fall during the paid element of parental leave you'll receive payment for it with your parental leave pay. The lieu day would be added to your parental leave or could be taken later with the agreement of your line manager
bank or public holidays that fall during the unpaid element of parental leave you'll receive payment for it with your first month's salary after your return to work. The lieu day would be added to your parental leave or it could be taken later with the agreement of your line manager

Carrying-out work and keeping-in-touch days

Although it is not expected, during your parental leave you may if you wish, carry-out work in your role and doing this would not bring your parental leave to an end. This might include a training day or undertaking an activity in order to stay connected with your workplace. Any work carried out on any day shall constitute a day's work and will be given back to you as time off in lieu, however this must be agreed by the line manager before any work is undertaken in the first instance, if it has not been agreed, the line manager is not obligated to honour the time back in lieu. We would not advise or recommend, and we cannot require, you to carry-out work of this nature during the initial 6 weeks of your parental leave.

Any reasonable contact between you and your line manager or a colleagues from time to time, for example meeting to discuss your return to work, popping into say hello or attending on the odd occasion, a weekly team meeting, during your parental leave does not constitute carrying-out work and therefore does not qualify for time off in lieu.

Continuous service

The full period or periods of parental leave, whether paid or unpaid, will count towards the length of your continuous service with the Government of Jersey.

Pension

If your role is eligible for an existing pension scheme then the paid weeks of parental leave are subject to deductions for pension contributions.

If you opt to continue your contributions during the unpaid element of parental leave, then the whole period of your parental leave will then count as pensionable service. However, if you opt not to, then this period will only count as qualifying service.

For any clarification or advice regarding your pension whilst on parental leave, please contact the public employees pension team PEPT@gov.je.

Returning to work

If you decide to change the end dates of any of your parental leave periods and return to work earlier than originally intended, then you should give your line manager not less than 6 weeks' written notice.

If you decide to change the end dates of any of your parental leave periods and return to work later than you originally intended as long as the extension does not take you past a total of 52 weeks parental leave and does not take you past the cut-off of within 2 years, you should give your line manager not less than 6 weeks' written notice.

You are entitled to return to the role that you were employed in immediately before you commenced your parental leave. In certain circumstances, there may be an exception to this, usually in the cases of organisational change. If your role is likely to be affected by organisational change then your line manager will keep in touch with you whilst you are on parental leave to ensure that you are kept up to date.

If you are considering a change of hours when you return to work, then you should refer to our Flexible Working Policy.

Breastfeeding

Breast feeding after your return to work

If you wish to continue breastfeeding or need to express breast milk after your return to work, we will provide facilities in the workplace to support this. You and your line manager are jointly responsible for ensuring a health and safety assessment has been completed before bringing the baby in for feeds.

In some of our departments or locations, facilities for breastfeeding are already in place which include a private room, a suitable chair, a socket and a fridge. In other departments or locations we may need to make some further arrangements for you. Therefore, you should discuss this with your line manager, or People Services business partner prior to your return to work and give as much notice as possible so we can ensure everything you need is in place.

You will also need to meet with your line manager to request reasonable breaks from work and discuss and agree any temporary changes to your working pattern to accommodate this. You would also need to discuss with your line manager how long you expect the temporary change to last. Temporary changes would relate to:

the hours during which you are required to work
the times when you are required to work
the place where you are required to work

Changes might include for example, a longer lunch break, an extra break, shorter working hours, or different working hours.

Any breaks from work to breastfeed or express breastmilk, taken within 52 weeks of the baby's birth, would be paid. Any breaks thereafter for this purpose would be unpaid.

After the meeting to discuss your request, if a decision is not reached at that meeting then your line manager will need to let you know their decision within 14 days of the meeting. In the unlikely circumstance that an agreement cannot be reached between you and your line manager regarding a temporary change to your working pattern, then you are entitled to appeal.

To appeal procedure is as follows:

you must give written notice of your appeal to the People Consultancy Services Team within 7 days of your request being turned down. You must also set out the grounds for your appeal.
within 7 days of receipt of the appeal, we will meet with you to discuss your appeal. You may bring a union representative or workplace colleague to the meeting if you wish.
within 7 days of the meeting taking place, we will communicate the outcome of the appeal.
if in the meantime agreement is reached on the temporary changes to your working pattern, then the appeal can be terminated.

Not returning to work

If you decide not to return to work, then you must ensure that you resign, giving the required contractual notice period. Depending on the length of your notice period and the length of your parental leave period, this may mean that you have to return to work and work your notice, unless both you and your line manager mutually agree an earlier termination date.

When you resign, if on the date that your notice expires for example the effective date of termination, you have not completed 2 years continuous service with Jersey public services then you will be required to pay back the non-statutory element of the paid parental leave that you have taken.

Parental Leave policy for public servants

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Introduction

Code of practice and policy family

Periods of p​are​ntal leave

Additional information about parental leave entitlement

In the case of childbirth

In the case of adoption

In the case of surrogacy

Sickness

Carrying-out work and keeping-in-touch days

Breast feeding after your return to work

Introduction

Periods of parental leave