Every employer is entitled to refuse a flexible working request for genuine business reasons. That has not changed. What has changed is how closely that decision is now being scrutinised, and new research suggests a lot of businesses would not like what a closer look might find.

What the research actually found

A recent study from the charity Pregnant Then Screwed, carried out in partnership with Women in Data and based on responses from over five thousand UK mothers, found flexible working requests are being refused at nearly double the national rate for some groups. Single parents have seen a 109 percent rise in refusals. Parents with a disability have seen a 65 percent rise. Nationally, 14.2 percent of requests are refused. For single parents, that figure rises to 27.5 percent. For parents with a disability, 23.3 percent.

Employee relations expert Jim Moore summed up the real risk plainly: if an organisation allows some employees to work flexibly but refuses others in comparable roles, it is creating a genuine discrimination risk, not just an awkward inconsistency.

Why refusing isn’t the problem, being inconsistent is

A flexible working policy does not fail because a business says no sometimes. It fails when two people in similar roles, facing similar circumstances, get different answers without a documented, defensible reason why. That is exactly the pattern the research is picking up, and it is exactly the pattern that turns a business decision into a tribunal claim.

What’s coming next

Further reforms are already on the way. From 2027, employers will need to demonstrate that any refusal genuinely meets a reasonableness test, not just tick one of the existing eight business reasons on a form. Refusals will need real documentation and real engagement with the request, not a five minute conversation and a template letter.

What this means for your business

Now is a sensible time to check three things. Whether your flexible working decisions are actually documented, not just remembered. Whether similar requests are being treated consistently across your business, not just within one team. And whether managers understand they need to genuinely engage with a request, not just apply a default answer.

None of this requires an overhaul. It usually just requires a proper look at what your business is actually doing, versus what your policy says it does.

If you want an honest review of how your flexible working policy holds up in practice, book a free HR assessment and we will talk it through.