More than 20,000 civil servants will be able to apply for term-time working from next April. A new agreement allows full-time civil servants with children aged 18 or younger to take up to 13 weeks' unpaid leave a year. The agreement will also cover civil servants seeking leave to care for people with disabilities who live with them.
The agreement follows the conclusion of more than two years of negotiations between unions and the Department of Finance. This includes the operation of two successful pilot schemes in six Government departments.
The assistant general secretary of the Civil and Public Service Union, Ms Gaye Dalton, said yesterday a huge uptake in applications was expected from working parents, judging by the huge number of phone inquiries about the scheme.
The agreement will allow civil servants to be paid pro-rata if they opt for term-time working. In other words, their monthly pay can be adjusted to 75 per cent of the normal amount, ensuring a continuing income during the time they are off.
They will be entitled to 20 days' annual paid leave, but will not be entitled to sick pay if they fall ill during the 13 weeks they are off. Staff can also opt to be paid in full during the time they are working and forgo any salary during the 13 weeks' leave. They would then have to make their own arrangements to adjust changes in health cover, loan repayments and other monthly salary deductions.
Ms Dalton said pilot schemes so far suggested the reduction in take-home pay for most workers would be about 11 per cent, when tax relief and the savings on commuting and childcare were taken into account.
Accessibility to the scheme will depend on whether departments can recruit temporary replacement staff.
Experience from the pilot schemes suggested this should not be a problem, Ms Dalton said. "Last year there was an over-supply of replacement staff available in provincial areas and we still had enough in Dublin to meet demand." A combination of school-leavers who did not want to make long-term job commitments and mature women wishing to "brush up on their return-to-work skills" comprised the bulk of recruits to the part-time posts.
The vast majority of applicants for term-time working so far have been women, but Ms Dalton expects more men to apply as the scheme becomes more widely accessible.
"Term-time working will create a more flexible working environment which, combined with parental leave provisions, will enable men and women to combine more effective family and work responsibilities," she said.
The Civil Service unions are also close to concluding a new agreement on work-sharing to replace the current job-share arrangements. The agreement will provide for 28 working options providing working hours tailored to individuals' needs.
Ms Dalton said these would probably be phased in over a period with an implementation date next July or August. Both agreements were the result of growing recognition by employers of the need to address quality of life issues, as well as pay, if they wished to retain staff.
Other employers in both the public and private sector had expressed an interest in the Civil Service scheme with a view to replicating it.