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The Council and the General Board give notice that they have agreed a policy which covers all aspects of maternity leave provision for all groups of staff. The policy statement, which harmonizes maternity leave provision for all staff groups and complies with changes to statutory provision contained in the Employment Relations Act 1999, will be circulated to Heads of Institutions and will also be made available on the Personnel Division's website (www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/personnel/policy/maternity.html). The policy will apply to all female employees whose date of confinement is on or after 1 October 2001.
All women University officers shall be entitled to eighteen weeks' maternity leave with stipend and, in addition, up to thirty-four weeks' unpaid maternity leave. It is recognized that not all University officers in this situation will wish to take the maximum period of leave, since, as a condition of dispensation, they will be precluded from undertaking any teaching, administrative, or examining duties for the University or for a College, or any other employment during the paid period of maternity leave. (Under current legislation no woman may resume work earlier than two weeks after giving birth.)
The eighteen weeks' paid maternity leave should normally commence no earlier than the eleventh week before the expected date of childbirth. A University officer who intends to take maternity leave shall give at least twenty-one days' notice of that fact, through the Personnel Consultant assigned to her institution, to the Registrary if she holds an office under the supervision of the Council, or to the Secretary General of the Faculties if she holds an office under the supervision of the General Board. However, in order to facilitate provision of cover for their duties, officers are encouraged to give this notice normally three months before the proposed date of the commencement of the leave. Maternity leave will be granted under the provisions of Statute D, II, 6(b). Employer's contributions to USS will be continued for the period of paid leave; during any period of unpaid leave an officer may maintain her USS contributions by paying both the employee's and the employer's contributions. Stipend increments will accrue in the normal way during leave. Funds will be made available by the General Board to provide substitute teaching for staff on maternity leave.
A term which includes maternity leave will be reckoned as a term of service for the purposes of Statute D, II, 5.
Further detail is contained in the policy statement.
The Council give notice that, after consultation with the University and Assistants Joint Board, they have published a revised version of Rules J, Maternity Leave and Pay, which sets out the provisions of the policy statement. Copies of the revised Rules will be circulated to Heads of Institutions together with the policy statement. Further copies are available on request from the Personnel Division.
1 The following text replaces the Council and General Board's Notice on p. 635 of Statutes and Ordinances.
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Cambridge University Reporter, 23 May 2001