Letter confirming compassionate leave

Where you wish to approve an employee’s request for compassionate leave, you can use our letter to confirm your approval.

Statutory provisions

Employees are statutorily entitled to take a reasonable amount of unpaid time off work to take necessary action to deal with certain unexpected or sudden emergency situations involving their dependants – see our Time Off for Dependants Policy. The statutory right envisages that the amount of time off will be sufficient to enable the employee to cope with the crisis, or to make alternative longer-term care arrangements, but that no more than a day or two should be needed. It’s intended to cover such situations as when a dependant falls ill, is injured or dies. However, it’s not time off for grieving following a dependant’s death, nor is it time off to nurse a sick dependant back to health, and a dependant is narrowly defined here. If the employee has already taken unexpected time off for dependants, you can ask them to complete our Family Emergencies Absence Form on their return to work. Employees who are the bereaved parents of a child under 18 who has died (including a child stillborn after at least 24 weeks of pregnancy) may also be entitled to statutory parental bereavement leave and pay - see our Parental Bereavement Leave Policy. Finally, employees who wish to be absent from work to provide or arrange care for a dependant with a long-term care need may have a statutory right to take up to one week of unpaid carer’s leave per rolling twelve-month period – see our Carer’s Leave Policy.

Other provisions

Unless the proposed absence falls within the statutory rights to either time off for dependants, parental bereavement leave or carer’s leave (and the employee has complied with the statutory provisions relating to taking those types of leave), there’s no general statutory right for employees to take bereavement or compassionate leave for relatives’ or friends’ deaths, illnesses or injuries. However, you may have provided contractual or discretionary rights to time off for bereavement or compassionate leave - see, for example, our Compassionate Leave Clause, Bereavement Policy and Leaves of Absence Policy. Bereavement leave applies in the case of a death, but compassionate leave is wider and can also cover cases of serious illness or injury, as well as anything else you may have specified in your clause/policy. If an employee therefore requests compassionate leave, first consider whether it falls under their statutory or contractual/discretionary rights – in the latter case, look at their employment contract and any relevant policies.

Confirmation letter

Assuming you’re willing to grant the employee’s requested compassionate leave (including in bereavement cases), you can use our Letter Confirming Compassionate Leave. It’s intended to be used alongside our compassionate leave clause or leaves of absence policy, and it grants the leave requested and sets out the position on pay. With pay, we’ve given two options – one for there to be no right to pay (and so any payment of salary is discretionary) and the other for the absence to be paid (but with the option of limiting payment to a maximum number of days). You may need to amend our letter to comply with what the employee’s employment contract or any relevant policy says – for example, our bereavement policy provides more enhanced rights to bereavement leave. Also, if an employee has requested several days’ compassionate leave but you’re only willing to agree to fewer days, make this clear by amending our letter accordingly.