The Employment Rights Act 2025 in Great Britain introduces changes to an employee’s right to request to work flexibly and the employer’s response. The UK Government is consulting on these reforms.
Currently, employees have the statutory right to request a contract variation in terms of:
- The hours of work;
- The times of work; and / or
- The place of work
However, employers do not have to accept the request if they have reasonable grounds, for example, there will be a detrimental effect on customer service or additional costs.
In April 2024, the UK Government introduced changes, which included the requirement that the employer consults with the employee before rejecting a request to work flexibly. The Employment Rights Act 2025 makes further changes, updating the overriding employment legislation (the 1996 Act, Part 8A).
A consultation ‘Make Work Pay: improving access to flexible working’ explains the changes, from 2027, mean that employers need to adopt a ’reasonableness test’. This means that, after consultation, if the request is rejected by the employer they must provide an explanation to the employee, i.e. why they consider it reasonable to reject the request. If the employee disagrees, the employee can say this is unreasonable and ask for a review, ultimately taking this to an Employment Tribunal.
For Bookkeepers
The planned reforms do not make fundamental changes:
- There will still be a statutory right to request to work flexibly / vary the contract; however
- The employer does not have to accept this if they can provide justification
The main change is employers will have to give more consideration as to why the request is turned down, actively looking at the justifiable refusal reasons and explaining these to the employee. The eight valid business reasons are at section 80G.
The consultation is open until 30 April 2026 and ICB encourages members to respond if they believe they will be impacted by the reforms.
