ACAS Flexible Working Requests consultation

Flexible Working: ACAS has produced a (draft) revised Code of Practice for handling flexible working requests. This is to accompany the changes to the right to request flexible working under the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023, which has just received royal assent (see above).

The revised Code (available here) includes:

• Additional detail on how to handle a request and an appeal;
• Recommendation that employers take a positive approach in dealing with requests;
• Advice that requests must not be rejected by default and that employers should engage with those making requests. This includes meeting with the employee to discuss their request, even if it is just to confirm to the employee that their request has been accepted.
• Dealing with the overlapping right of an employee to request a predictable working pattern (see above) and how this might be dealt with as part of a flexible working request.

ACAS has published a consultation on its revised Code of Practice for handling flexible working requests (available here) which closes on 6 September 2023. This is to obtain feedback on the Code. However, whilst general views and input are accepted, ACAS has created 11 questions for specific feedback, varying from asking whether the tone of the Foreword properly encourages open-mindedness from employers to specific aspects of what is in the Code and whether they should be there (for example, the reference to a the right to request a predictable working pattern).