Special leave request form

Employees have a number of statutory rights to take time off work for various reasons, but there’s no entitlement to simply take “special leave”. It’s important to keep a log of time taken off work to ensure that the statutory provisions, or your goodwill, are not being abused.

Time off work

There’s currently no statutory entitlement for employees to take “special leave” as such. Employees do, however, have a number of other statutory rights to time off, including:

• for antenatal appointments (pregnant employees)
• to accompany at antenatal appointments (those who have a “qualifying relationship” with the pregnant woman)
• for adoption appointments (prospective adopters)
• to perform certain public duties
• to perform certain duties and activities as a trade union official or member
• to perform duties and activities as an elected employee representative or health and safety representative
• to perform duties as an occupational pension scheme trustee
• to look for work when under notice of redundancy
• to accompany a fellow employee at a disciplinary or grievance hearing.

Some of these are rights to paid time off and the others are to unpaid time off. Our Special Leave Request Form covers all of the above plus a couple of other scenarios where special time off work might be requested by an employee. Using our form means you can keep an accurate log of the time off work taken by an employee for reasons other than sickness, family-friendly rights and annual leave. Be aware that preventing an employee from using their holiday entitlement to take time off for a religious holiday could amount to indirect discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief, unless it can be objectively justified on business grounds. Likewise, preventing a disabled employee from attending a related medical appointment could amount to disability discrimination.