Flexible working changes: what the government decided on 15 September, and why nothing changes until autumn 2027

Updated 27 September 2026

This is a decision, not a change in the law. Nothing about how your request is handled changes this year. What the government has now done is fix the shape of the meeting your employer will have to hold, and drop some of the ideas that were floated, including a legal right to bring a companion and a rule that the person who decides must be in the room.

What did the government announce on 15 September 2026?

The Department for Business and Trade published its response to the consultation on improving access to flexible working. The consultation ran from 5 February to 30 April 2026 and drew 1,016 responses, 745 of them from individuals, 117 from employers and 27 from trade union organisations.

The 44-page response commits to two things:

• Regulations setting out a process that an employer must follow before rejecting a statutory flexible working request.
• Bringing the reasonableness test into force. This is the part of the Employment Rights Act 2025 that says an employer may only refuse where refusing is reasonable.

The government's stated intention is that both take effect in autumn 2027. No day has been given, and the regulations have not been drafted in public yet. Acas will also consult on an updated Code of Practice on flexible working requests, which the response says will be laid before Parliament in early summer 2027 so that it starts at the same time as the new rules. When we checked the Acas consultations page on 27 September 2026, that consultation had not opened.

What are the rules right now?

The current framework has been in place since 6 April 2024, and none of it changes until the new rules start. Our guide to writing a flexible working request covers the practical side, with a template letter. In summary:

• Day one. Any employee can make a statutory request from the first day of a job. There is no qualifying period.
• Two requests a year. You can make two statutory requests in any 12-month period, and you no longer have to explain what effect the change would have on the business.
• Two months to decide. Under section 80G of the Employment Rights Act 1996, your employer must tell you its decision within two months of your application, including any appeal it offers. That period can only be longer if you agree.
• Consultation first. Your employer must not refuse unless it has consulted you about the request.
• Eight grounds. A refusal must rest on one or more of the eight business grounds: extra costs, customer demand, inability to reorganise work among existing staff, inability to recruit, quality, performance, not enough work at the times you want to work, and planned structural changes.

The Acas Code of Practice on requests for flexible working, in force since 6 April 2024, adds good practice on top. It says the consultation should happen without unreasonable delay, that the decision should be confirmed in writing, and that offering an appeal and letting you bring a companion are good practice. Tribunals take the Code into account, but most of it is not a legal requirement in itself.

The weakness in the current law is that the test for a refusal is subjective. The employer has to consider that one of the eight grounds applies. If it genuinely believes that, and its facts are right, a tribunal has very little room to question whether the belief was sensible.

What is the reasonableness test?

Section 9 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 rewrites the refusal rule in section 80G. Once it is fully in force, an employer may refuse a request only if two things are true:

1. the employer considers that one or more of the eight grounds applies, and
2. it is reasonable for the employer to refuse the application on that ground or those grounds.

The second limb is the new one. It turns the question from "did your employer believe it?" into "was it reasonable to say no for that reason?". A refusal that cites extra cost, for example, would have to be a reasonable response to a real cost, not just a label attached to a decision already made.

Section 9 also adds a new requirement for the refusal itself. The written decision must state the ground or grounds, and explain why the employer considers it reasonable to refuse on them. A one-line letter naming "detrimental impact on performance" would no longer be enough.

Section 9 has technically been in force since 6 January 2026, but only for specified purposes, which in practice means the power to make regulations. The new test does not yet apply to real requests. It is the autumn 2027 commencement that will switch it on.

The eight grounds themselves are not changing. Guidance on what a reasonable refusal looks like is expected to come through the revised Acas Code.

What will the new meeting look like?

This is the heart of the announcement. The current law says your employer must consult you, but it does not say what the consultation involves. The new regulations will. The response sets out the planned requirements:

The purpose of the meeting. Before rejecting a request, the employer must hold a meeting to consider whether the arrangement you asked for is feasible and deal with the challenges where possible, and, if it is not feasible, to explore suitable alternatives. The meeting must be held "with a view to reaching an agreement" with you. Those words were added after the consultation, and the government says the meeting should look at your original request first, before any alternatives come up.

Setting it up.

• The meeting must take place within the two-month decision period.
• Your employer must give you fair and reasonable notice of it. There will be no fixed minimum. One week was the most popular answer in the consultation (44.6%) and several unions asked for 10 working days, but the government chose "fair notice" instead and says it will publish guidance on it.
• You must be told the purpose of the meeting in advance. The draft wording said "context", which lawyers and trade bodies thought was confusing.

In the meeting. Your employer must clearly tell you any problems it sees with the request and consider possible solutions with you. The response gives the example of a start date that does not work for the business: the employer should consider whether a different start date would. If your original request cannot be accommodated, you and your employer must consider whether any alternative arrangement is feasible. An employer can only turn down an alternative that you propose on one of the business grounds, just as with the original request.

After the meeting. Your employer must give you two things in writing: the outcome of the meeting, meaning a summary of what was concluded or agreed as next steps (not full minutes), and the outcome of the request, meaning the final decision, whether that is approval, refusal or an agreed alternative. If you reach agreement in the meeting, one written communication can cover both.

The response is clear that the meeting is part of the decision process, not the moment the decision has to be announced. Your employer may need time after it to think about an alternative. It can still extend the two-month period only with your agreement.

What was dropped from the proposals?

Several things either did not make it into the regulations or were never going to be there. They matter because they are the questions people ask most.

The decision-maker does not have to attend

The consultation proposed that someone with authority to decide on the request must be at the meeting. Employer groups, including the CBI, said this would be unworkable in large organisations where an HR director or a senior leader signs off requests. The government has dropped it from the regulations. It still says that "in most situations" someone who can decide should be present, and it added the "with a view to reaching an agreement" wording to stop the meeting becoming a formality.

No legal right to a companion

Unions, including the TUC, asked for a right to be accompanied. The regulations will not include one. Guidance will continue to encourage employers to let you bring someone, and the government says that where a union is recognised, you should be allowed to bring a union representative if you wish.

No statutory appeal

Some respondents wanted the old right of appeal back. The government said no, on the basis that the meeting already gives more say than the law does now. The Acas Code recommends an appeal as good practice. Where there is none, the response points to formal advice, a grievance, or ultimately a tribunal.

Trial periods stay voluntary

Discussing a trial period had 82.5% support, but it will not be a legal requirement. Employers can already agree a trial, a review date or an arrangement for a fixed time, and the government will promote this through guidance. The response gives examples of time-limited arrangements, such as term-time working agreed for a fixed number of years.

The reasonable adjustment question was removed

The draft process required the employer to ask whether you wanted the request treated as a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act 2010. Unions and lawyers warned this mixed up two separate areas of law, and the government removed it. That does not weaken the duty to make reasonable adjustments. If you are disabled, that duty applies whether or not you make a flexible working request, it arises once your employer knows about the disability, and the test of what is reasonable is different. A refused request that should have been handled as an adjustment can be a disability discrimination claim, with its own time limit.

What the consultation found about requests now

The response includes figures that are worth knowing if you are deciding whether to ask. They come from people who chose to answer a government consultation, so they are not a random survey, but they show where the friction is.

• Of 727 individuals who answered, 74.3% had considered making a statutory request in the previous three years, and 61.7% of those went on to make one.
• Of 330 who had made a request, 58.8% had it accepted, 15.2% agreed an alternative, and 26.1% were refused.
• Only 27.7% of individuals thought access had improved since the April 2024 changes. 38.8% thought it had not, and 33.5% were unsure.
• Employers were more positive: 48.1% said access had improved.

The response also records that some employees never ask, because they expect to be refused or worry about how the request will be seen.

What can you do if a request goes wrong now?

Until autumn 2027 the complaint route is the one in section 80H of the Employment Rights Act 1996. You can complain to an employment tribunal that your employer:

• did not follow the duties in section 80G: for example, it refused without consulting you, missed the two-month deadline, or refused for a reason that is not one of the eight grounds;
• based a refusal on incorrect facts; or
• treated your request as withdrawn when it was not entitled to. Your employer can only do that if you missed two meetings in a row about the request without good reason, and it has told you it is treating the request as withdrawn.

The time limit is currently three months from the relevant date, which is usually the day your employer tells you its decision, or the day the decision period ends without one. From 1 October 2026 that becomes six months. The change was commenced by SI 2026/954, and its transitional table applies it only where the relevant date is on or after 1 October 2026. If your decision arrived in September, the old three months still applies. Start Acas early conciliation before you claim, and check your dates with our tribunal deadline calculator.

The remedy is limited. Under section 80I, a tribunal can declare the complaint well founded, order your employer to reconsider the request, and award compensation of up to 8 weeks' pay, set by regulation 6 of the Flexible Working Regulations 2014. A week's pay is capped at £751 for these purposes from 6 April 2026, under the Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order 2026, so the most you can get is £6,008. A tribunal cannot order your employer to grant the request.

That is why the stronger claims are often not flexible working claims at all. A refusal that hits women harder, for example a rule against part-time or school-hours working, can be indirect sex discrimination. A refusal of a disabled worker's request can be a failure to make reasonable adjustments. And being treated badly or dismissed because you made a request is a separate complaint of detriment or automatically unfair dismissal. Those routes have their own tests and uncapped awards for discrimination, and the rules on them are not changed by this announcement.

Where this sits in the wider reforms

Flexible working is one of the 2027 measures in the government's implementation timeline, alongside new pregnancy protections, bereavement leave and guaranteed hours. Our overview of the Employment Rights Act changes covers the full list and the dates that are already fixed.

The response also touches on one overlap. Some respondents worried that an employer could use the new limits on fire and rehire to reverse a flexible working arrangement later. The government says the revised Code of Practice on dismissal and re-engagement will explain how those rules apply, and that it will give employers guidance on setting timeframes for flexible arrangements. If an arrangement you agree is meant to be temporary, make sure the end date or review date is written down, and if it is meant to be permanent, make sure that is clear too.

What should you do in the meantime?

If you need a change now, do not wait for 2027. The right to request already exists, and the new process largely writes down what good employers already do. The response quotes the CIPD saying most HR teams at its roundtable already worked this way.

• Make it a statutory request. Put it in writing, date it, and say it is made under section 80F. Our template letter does this.
• Ask for the meeting. Your employer already has to consult you before refusing. Ask for a conversation, and go in with your own answers to the obvious problems: cover, handovers, the busiest days.
• Offer a trial. A trial with a review date is often easier to agree than a permanent change.
• Ask which ground, and why. If you are refused, ask which of the eight grounds applies and what facts it rests on. A refusal based on facts that are wrong is already a complaint you can make.
• Watch the clock. Note the date you sent the request and the date two months later. If you want to challenge the outcome, the tribunal time limit starts from the decision or from the end of that period.

This page is general information for England, Wales and Scotland, not legal advice. For your own situation, speak to Acas, a solicitor, or your union.