1. Trust Policy The Trust aims to maintain a workforce that is highly skilled, competent and flexible and one that puts the patient at the centre of maintaining and delivering high quality, cost effective health services. As part of achieving this aim, the Trust recognises the importance of providing flexible working arrangements that primarily provide more scope and flexibility in the workforce to meet the changing demands of current services and service developments in the future, and enable employees to alter the balance between work and life away from work.

2. Who can apply? Any employee who has 26 weeks continuous employment with the Trust by the date of application under the policy. Note applications for a career breaks requires 12 months continuous service. Applications can be made by an individual or a group of employees

3. Types of Flexible Working Reduced Hours Job Share Term Time Working Variable Time working Flexible Working Team- Based Self Rostering Career Breaks Flexible Retirement Annualised Hours

4. General Principles Employees with the relevant qualifying service have the right to request flexible working an have it properly considered- there is no automatic right to flexible working. A request for flexible working must provide enough relevant information to enable the manager to make an informed decision. Only one request for flexible working can be made in any 12 month period.

5. The process for requesting flexible working Employee submits request form to manager Manager must decide if the request can be accommodated in line with the business needs of the Trust and discuss the request with the Directorate Manager/ Head of Department/Clinical Director and make a recommendation Request is sent to the Senior Human resources Manager who will make a decision on the recommendation. The HR department will administer any change to a contract in writing and notify Payroll of any change affecting pay.

6. Request form

7. Reduced Hours Reduced hours working enables employees to continue work when they are unable to fulfil the demands of fulltime working, e.g. due to caring responsibilities they can also be attractive to people who are simply not interested or able to work fulltime hours. Reduced hours relates to where an employee is contracted to a number of hours that are less than the normal hours of work of a comparable full time employee. Approved requests for reduced hours will be accommodated at existing grade of hours whenever possible. However, this cannot be guaranteed.

8. Job-share This is normally where two people share the duties and responsibilities of one full time post in a partnership arrangement. Pay, holidays and other terms and conditions are on a pro-rata basis depending on each individual’s length of service and the particular working arrangements of the job-share. The way in which a job-share works must be determined by the manager in consultation with the partners. Agreement is needed on the hours and days to be worked and how the duties will be undertaken. This must include appropriate cover arrangements for any overlap. It is not a requirement of job-sharing that one partner covers the other during their planned (e.g. annual leave and study leave), or unplanned (e.g. sickness) absence, though this will be encouraged where appropriate and does not prevent cover arrangements existing where this is agreed.

9. Term- Time Working This is where there is agreement to allow an employee to take extended unpaid leave to coincide with school holidays. Employees are paid on a pro-rata basis according to their number of contracted weekly hours and the number of working weeks falling in term-time. Annual salary is paid monthly in twelve equal amounts.

10. V’ (Variable)-time working This is where there is agreement to allow an employee to voluntarily reduce their contracted working hours and/or pattern of work for a specified period. This is normally to enable them to manage their personal or caring commitments. The terms and conditions of employees during V-time working, such as pay and annual leave, are pro-rata to those of full time employees. This will be confirmed in writing to the employee. A period of V-time will not normally last longer than three months. The conclusion of the period of V-time must be confirmed in writing and arrangements made to reinstate the appropriate terms and conditions of employment.

11. Flexible Hours Working Flexible hours working allows employees to vary their actual working hours. This means that employees can vary their start and finish times to suit domestic responsibilities, travel arrangements or for work purposes. Managers must determine whether flexible hours working can be accommodated in their area(s) of responsibility whilst ensuring delivery of the service to meet the needs of the patient and customers.

12. Team-based Self-rostering Team-based self-rostering is a “bottom-up” approach to scheduling work, giving employees more control over the pattern of their working week. The team is collectively given the authority to schedule their working day/week within an agreed framework that details in advance the required staffing levels and skill mix to meet service needs. Team members propose the times they would like to work and times they would like to protect away from work. This information is then used to compile shift patterns that match individual preferences as closely as possible, whilst maintaining agreed levels of cover at all times.

13. Career Breaks A career break scheme provides a means of managing a situation where an employee wishes to request a break from their working lives. A career break is unpaid and would normally be expected to be for no longer than twelve months. The minimum length of a break is three months. A career break is an extended period of unpaid leave from work that begins with an intention to return to work at the Trust at an agreed date in the future. If an employee returns to work within a year, the same job will be available as far as is reasonably practicable, unless a redundancy situation arose during the period of the career break or there was some other reason why it is not reasonably practicable to return to the original job. If the break is granted for longer than a year, or return to the same job is not possible, an employee may return to as similar a job as possible. This may or may not be at the equivalent salary level. Where salary is at a lower level, protection will not apply.

14. Flexible Retirement The NHS pension scheme offers employees who are members and approaching, or thinking about retirement, the option to ‘wind down’ gradually by reducing the number of hours worked, or moving into a less demanding role whilst protecting (or even enhancing) their pension income at the same time. It also offers those who do retire, the option to return to work part-time, full time or for short periods e.g. in the winter months for a fixed term period of 12 months. By helping employees flex their retirement, the Trust can retain the knowledge and skills of experienced, valuable employees for longer.

15. Annualised Hours An annualised hours scheme aims to achieve a more even match between supply and demand for staff by distributing hours worked to coincide with actual levels of need – flexing the working year. Annualised hours can give the Trust and employees extra flexibility to vary patterns of work across each year according to service need and individual preference. The total number of hours to be worked in the full year must be agreed at the outset and in advance of any implementation. Exactly when these hours are put in each week or month is subject to agreement between the manager and members of the team.

16. Policy & Application Form Policy can be found on the intranet at http://intranet.xnuth.nhs.uk/Policies/personnel/FlexibleWorkingPolicy201206.pdf The form is accessible at http://intranet.xnuth.nhs.uk/Personnel/pdf/2012/application_for_flexible_wor king_arrangements.doc.