Buddy Says: Employees have the right to take a “reasonable” amount of time off work in order to deal with unexpected emergencies affecting their dependants (definition includes disabled children up to the age of 18) and to make any necessary long-term arrangements.

Legislation covering this area states that an employee is entitled to take reasonable time off where it is necessary and this includes:

• Providing assistance if a dependant falls ill, gives birth is injured or assaulted.
• Make longer term care arrangements for the provision of care for a dependant who is ill or injured
• In consequence of the death of a dependant
• Dealing with unexpected disruption for the care of a dependant, e.g. child care arrangements fall through due to illness.
• Dealing with an unexpected incident which concerns the employee’s child during school hours, e.g. adverse weather conditions forcing the school to close.

An employee is only allowed to take time off for dependant if a situation falls into one of the categories above. The right applies to all employees regardless of their length of service or if they work part time or full time.

If your employee is asking for time off to attend regular swimming lessons, say on weekly basis, then this would not be reasonable time off to deal with one of the categories above. However, If the person normally enlisted to help with the swimming lesson is unavailable owing to illness then this could be regarded as necessary. This area of the law does not however allow for the employee to take additional or ongoing time off to care for the dependant themselves. In the circumstances you may want to discuss the situation with the employee and allow for flexibility if possible. If the lessons are at the start or end of the day you could perhaps consider letting the employee make up the time during the day. If the time off doesn’t fall into one of the categories above it is down to your discretion as whether you allow the time off.

Whilst the law outlined above applies to the right to time off for dependants generally, the recent Advocate General’s opinion in Coleman v Attridge Law and Law C-303/06 outlines further considerations arising out of disability discrimination laws. Whilst the details of the case below are not exactly the same as the ones in the given scenario, the case does highlight the fact that employers may need to consider possible discrimination implications even if the employee concerned isn’t actually disabled.

The case involved a mother who cared for her disabled son. The mother brought a claim of direct discrimination and disability related discrimination amongst other things. The employment tribunal had to consider whether she was entitled to bring a disability discrimination claim based on an association with a disabled person, rather than being disabled herself. The Advocate General’s opinion was that the legal framework covering equal treatment in employment and occupation does cover discrimination by association and an employee can be a victim of unlawful discrimination if the disability of another is used to treat the employee less favourably. Whilst this is an opinion at this stage, if the European Court of Justice follow the opinion and the Employment Appeal Tribunal imply the additional wording into the Disability Discrimination Act, employers will potentially face the cost of defending claims from employees who are responsible for the care of a disabled person.

For further information please see our Buddy article; “The devil’s advocate?”