Term-time working is an attractive workplace option and there is "huge interest" in it in the civil service, according to Ms Rosaleen Glackin, deputy general secretary of the Civil and Public Service Union (CPSU).
"People are ringing up the union all the time saying what's the hope of this coming into our department next year? And I mean our aim is it will be in every Government department for the summer holidays next year," she says.
Originally a job-creation rather than a family-friendly measure, term-time working was one of a number of proposals made in a July 1996 report, including three-day and four-day weeks, working three out of four weeks or four out of five weeks and mornings-only work.
Term-time working recognises that parents with children under 17 years of age need time off, especially during the long summer holidays. The leave is for either 10 or 13 weeks and is unpaid. Like all family-friendly initiatives, it is primarily women who are taking it up.
Term-time working started as a pilot scheme last year in the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs. According to Ms Glackin, "it wasn't really considered that it was broad enough in its scope to be a real pilot so this year it was extended to Revenue, Agriculture and Enterprise and Employment" covering all grades and categories of worker.
Workers who avail of the scheme can have their pay spread equally over 52 weeks of the year. They decide about this each April. It is available only for the summer school holidays and not for Christmas, Easter or mid-term breaks. "We'll be doing a review later this month to see how successful or otherwise the current pilot has been. And we may make some amendments to it. But we're also keen to perhaps giving a wider scope."
Temporary staff are recruited a month before the term-time commences, on the same scale of pay as the recruitment grade. They don't necessarily do the work of the person they are replacing.
"The jury is still out" on the implications of term-time working on reckonable service. But as for promotion, the European Court of Justice's Gerster decision found that a year's part-time service should be treated the same as a year's full-time work.
"That had huge implications for, say, the whole job-sharing scheme in the civil service which had been operating since 1984 and there had to be a major review of all personnel who had job-shared in the civil service since 1984. That was 1997," Ms Glackin says.
"Then my own union had a follow-up case called the Hill and Stapleton decision, which went as far as the European Court as well. It ruled that incremental progression while a person was job sharing - and obviously this could apply to part-time work as well - had to be reckoned for purposes of increment as if it was full-time service. Now we're saying to the Department of Finance that term-time has to be treated in the same way," she says. They're awaiting the Attorney General's advice on that.
Ms Glackin will give a talk on term-time working at the annual EAP Institute conference*, which this year explores how to develop family-friendly initiatives in the workplace. The conference takes place on September 29th and 30th at the Stakis Hotel, Charlemont Street, Dublin 2. * For further details about the conference contact Ms Mary Lenihan, EAP Institute, 143 Barrack Street, Waterford. Telephone: 051 855733. Fax: 051 879626.
