Jersey parental leave not equal for all families, panel says

Jersey’s government needs to do more to ensure all families in Jersey benefit from the island’s parental leave system, a scrutiny panel says.

The panel conducted a year-long review to look at whether amendments to Jersey’s Employment Law, made in 2018 and 2020, were meeting the needs of modern families and employers.

Panel head Deputy Louise Doublet said that, while the review highlighted many positives, it revealed that single-parents were “structurally disadvantaged” by the current system.

Social Security Minister Deputy Lyndsay Feltham said she was grateful for the “thorough and detailed report” and would provide a response to its findings and 22 recommendations made in due course.

The review panel highlighted that, under the current laws, access to parental leave was granted on a parent-by-parent basis, not per family.

“This means single-parent families effectively have access to half of the total leave available to two-parent households, and their children accordingly gain half of the benefit of this caring time,” it said.

Commenting on this, Doublet said: “Single-parent families are an important part of modern family life, yet the current framework does not always reflect their circumstances fairly, nor is it equitable for children from these families.”

She added that many different groups, including people on lower and middle incomes, could not afford to take all of their parental leave.

“This means many children are not benefiting from being cared for by their parents in their earliest months, which can impact on their healthy development,” she said.

The panel has called on leaders to provide extra support for single-parent families, such as more paid leave; and to consider extending existing leave entitlements to grandparents and other family members who take care-giving roles.

The panel has recommended an action plan for tackling these issues to be presented to the States Assembly by 2027.

The recommendations from the report were made on the basis of 55 findings.

While these covered a range of areas, many were related to the cost of raising children in Jersey.

Some of these included:

• Finding 18: Several parents noted that the cost of childcare alone determined family size, with many explicitly stating that they could not afford to have a second child, and that the economics of family life in Jersey were unsustainable

• Finding 19: Many parents described the return to work as one of the most difficult periods of their lives, feeling forced back earlier than they wanted due to financial necessity

• Finding 39: Parents had considered leaving the Island, or even ending a pregnancy, because they could not afford another child. They cited the combined impacts of childcare costs, the general cost of living and unaffordable housing.

Doublet said she was shocked by some of the submissions from charities supporting local families with the high cost of living.

She said: “They described scenarios whereby families were struggling with essential things such as food and accommodation, where two parents were working opposite shifts because they couldn’t afford childcare.

“It does paint a picture of some parts of the island actually really struggling just to provide the basics for their families.”

Doublet said the review found businesses, particularly smaller businesses, had struggled with the legal changes.

HR consultant Rachel Lucas said about 75% of businesses in Jersey had fewer than 10 staff, which meant parental leave requests often had a big impact.

She said: “If you’re five or six staff and you’ve got one person suddenly out for like six weeks, that is a big thing to plan for. That makes a huge difference.

“It can also put people off recruiting and make them nervous because they think: ‘Oh, maybe I’ll recruit somewhere else where I don’t have this burden and where it doesn’t happen.’”

One anonymous submission to the review from a small construction firm described how a company was “nearly crippled” by having to pay two out of its six employees six weeks’ parental leave on top of their annual leave entitlement.

It said: “Whilst I think the improvements to the law benefit the parents, it is really difficult as an employer to afford these costs.

“If we had any staff off this year on parental leave, we’d have to fold the company as this is not a cost we can cover again.”

Doublet said another key recommendation from the report was an improvement in communication around parental rights in Jersey, for both businesses and employees.

“That needs to be improved urgently because, if families and businesses equally don’t know what is in the law, then it’s difficult for those provisions to be made and for people to access them,” she said.