Ms Sarah Benson:

With respect to exceptional additional leave, for example, sick leave, some employers will include that within policies and it could equally be included in legislation. It would normally be with the word “may”, and so without obligation, and I do not know whether it will become the rock that we would die on to put it in as “must”. It would be for exceptional circumstances. It could be that somebody has an immaculate sick leave record, for example, but then perhaps contracts a very serious illness, such as cancer or something like that, and there will be a procedure whereby he or she could apply for additional leave in exceptional circumstances, and we think those exceptional circumstances should be generously broad. In effect, as Ms Mulholland rightly stated, depending on the situation, it can be a long or a short journey, and ten days over a 12-month rolling period may be sufficient in order to accommodate somebody. However, they can have particularly protracted court proceedings, for example, around breaches of orders, and we also have situations where the courts themselves are weaponised almost, and that very often centres around custody and access matters and maintenance matters. It is like a war of attrition. If there are exceptional circumstances, we think they should be accommodated.

I quite cheekily put in a lot of appendices to my statement. There are data in there which show that the uptake for both New Zealand and Australia in particular was not huge. Again, it is incredibly hard to disclose. If it involves one in four women, not all of those women will be in employment and not all of them may need recourse to that leave, so that would affect the number we are talking about in terms of the hazard or the risk that an employer might face by going that extra mile to put this in.

This leads me to the Deputy’s second question, which is around confidentiality. It is acknowledged and it is very clear in the Bill as drafted, and we also have data protection obligations on employers. No matter what, there is almost a double-lock with employers already facing legal obligations around confidentiality but we have just identified a couple of circumstances where there needs to be a little more precision. We understand that where it talks about the need to disclose, that could manifest in a couple of ways. First, it might be where there is a line manager and a HR person and they just need to know for the purposes of processing leave, and it is all within that. However, there is a further issue that I added as an appendix and Ms Mulholland also alluded to it. A policy is not just around having paid leave and it can also be around flexible working time and safety planning. There can be exceptional circumstances where an individual poses a threat not just to his or her current or former partner, but also perhaps to other people in the organisation, so perhaps a member of the security staff or someone working in reception may need to be notified that a certain person is not to be on the premises, with that then being bound by confidentiality. There needs to be some explanation of what that might mean to give staff assurance.

We have a policy ourselves in Women's Aid and, similarly, it is allowed to be taken in hours, but we would be very clear in those situations that it is with informed consent of the individual and nothing is done and nobody is told without them knowing and being consulted about it. Generally, it will be in the context of workplace health and safety, not just for the person who is being subjected to the abuse but perhaps other individuals around risk management.

I would say again that these are rare cases but it is good to have them covered so we do not inadvertently have somebody's personal details or information shared, or that there is a chilling effect so they are not sure how their information will be received and, therefore, they will not disclose it at all.