Employment Rights Act 2025: government publishes consultation on flexible working reforms

The government has launched a consultation on the forthcoming changes to the statutory flexible working regime, inviting views on how employers should handle requests they cannot immediately accept. The consultation aims to ensure the new statutory framework under the Employment Rights Act 2025 (ERA 2025) meets the needs of employers, employees and HR professionals. 

What is the current position?

Employees currently benefit from a statutory right to request flexible working contained within the Employment Rights Act 1996. Recent reforms implemented in April 2024 widened access to flexible working, including:

• Allowing employees to request flexible working from day one
• Allowing employees to make two statutory requests in a 12‑month period
• Reducing the amount of time employers have to decide to accept or reject the application to two months
• Removing the need for employees to explain how their request will impact the organisation; and
• Introducing a duty on employers to consult with employees before rejecting a request.

Although these reforms were designed to make flexible working more accessible, the government doesn't think they have entirely got this right. It says that many consultation processes remain poorly defined and areinconsistently applied. This causes confusion for managers and employees. Evidence from the CIPD also suggests that flexible working requests are still not treated consistently or fairly across businesses, despite the widespread adoption of hybrid and remote working post‑pandemic.

What is changing?

The ERA 2025, which received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025, will make further significant changes to flexible working requests and will take effect in 2027. These include:

• A new statutory test of reasonableness for refusing a flexible working request – employers will have to explain why their refusal is reasonable and linked to the existing eight business reasons; and
• A new mandatory consultation process, to be set out in secondary legislation, which employers must follow when they are considering rejecting a request. This is expressed to be “light touch”.

The government has published draft proposals for this required consultation process. The aim is to promote constructive dialogue, encourage parties to consider alternatives, and support consistent decision‑making across organisations.

The proposed consultation process

Key points from the government’s proposed “light touch” process:

• A meeting must take place between the employer and employee if the request cannot be immediately accepted, held without unreasonable delay and within the two‑month decision period
• The employee should receive advance notice of the meeting’s purpose, and a decision‑maker with authority must attend
• Employers must keep a record of the discussion and ensure there is sufficient time to explore the request, any potential alternatives, and whether the proposal should be treated as a reasonable adjustment
• The employer should clearly explain any business challenges, consider ways to overcome them (including trial periods), and explore feasible alternative arrangements if the original request cannot be accommodated; and
• The employer must then provide written confirmation of the meeting summary and the final decision.

Non‑statutory guidance will accompany the statutory process to support employers to meet heir obligations.

Under the ERA 2025, employees will be able to bring an employment tribunal claim if they believe their request has been unreasonably refused. The remedies available will mirror those already available to employees under the current statutory regime: a tribunal will be able to order the employer to reconsider the request and order compensation of up to eight weeks’ pay.

What specific areas is the consultation inviting views on?

The consultation wants views on the following core areas:

1. Early impact of the April 2024 reforms

The government is gathering evidence on whether the 2024 reforms have:

• Increased the number of statutory requests
• Prompted changes to policies, processes, training or guidance
• Affected how often requests are rejected and how much time is spent dealing with unsuccessful requests; and
• Led managers to discuss reasonable adjustments, trial periods and alternatives as part of the process.

The consultation also asks employees whether they have considered making a request, what influenced their decision, and how the outcome has affected their working lives.

2. The proposed new consultation process

Feedback is sought on:

• Whether the purpose of the meeting (to consider ways to address challenges with the requested arrangement and explore whether a suitable alternative arrangement could be agreed) is correctly framed
• How much advance notice employees should receive before the meeting takes place
• Which elements should be mandatory and which should be guidance‑based; and
• Whether the proposed approach is likely to take more or less time than the current system.

3. Training, resources and support

The government also wants to understand:

• The challenges employers face when managing requests
• Who within organisations is responsible for handling them
• What training and resources they already provide to the decision makers
• What additional guidance they need (and how this should be formatted); and
• The broader barriers to flexible working that should be considered in future policy development.

Next steps

The consultation remains open until 11.59 pm on 30 April 2026. Once responses are analysed, the government will publish its official response and finalise the secondary legislation that will set out the new consultation process. Updated Acas statutory guidance is expected to follow, subject to further consultation.

Employers should start reviewing their flexible working frameworks, manager training and internal processes now to prepare for the upcoming statutory requirements expected in 2027.

You can learn more about this change, along with the wider package of employment law reforms introduced by the Employment Rights Act 2025, and what your business can do to prepare, in our webinar ‘2026 Annual employment update: everything you need to know to prepare your business for the year ahead’ on Thursday 26 February 2026 at 10am. Please register here. 

We also offer a wide range of support and services at all stages of the Employment Tribunal process. You can find out more about this in our brochure. 

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