Called for Jury Service -advice needed

bestpud

For a young child who is used to being in childcare to have their days/times extended for a couple of weeks is no big deal.

It is a different thing entirely to put a young child who has no such experience into daycare for two weeks.

Most parents take great care choosing the right childminder/nursery and many will have settling in sessions, or break them in gently in some way.

People just asking for two weeks childcare won't, in all likelihood, have this choice. In fact, there may not be many nurseries able to take a child under those circumstances.

Plus the parent has to pay the fees (sometimes upfront and many weeks before it is needed) and then claim it back - something many will find difficult to do.

They can request expenses be paid in advance but they are not guaranteed to get it.

That's my thoughts on the childcare issue!

thatgirlsam

shirlgirl2004 wrote: »

I told them I didn't have child care and was excused. I didn't work and my children were not at school. You can't pull trusted child carers from thin air.

gosh i think that was lucky then ...excused or deferred ?

i was told in no uncertain terms that having no childcare was not a reason , i could defer if i wished

i decided to get it over and done with .... i am lucky that my mum looked after my child who is not at school

Janepig

shirlgirl2004 wrote: »

There are plenty of people with young children that already put their children into daycare so let those be the parents that attend Jury service not those whose children have no experience of being looked after by people other than their parents.

Or the other side of the coin, why should working parents, who have already made the difficult decision to use daycare, lose wages and precious time with their children, when stay at home parents who would not lose money and who already spend all their time with their children could do it?

Jxx

gghh

Janepig wrote: »

Or the other side of the coin, why should working parents, who have already made the difficult decision to use daycare, lose wages and precious time with their children, when stay at home parents who would not lose money and who already spend all their time with their children could do it?

Jxx

Why should anyone have to lose wages???? :mad:
I never knew this until reading on here and that's completely unfair! I'm a single mum, one child at school, one in nursery while I work. If I got called to do jury service I would be completely stuffed!! 2 weeks (possibly more) unpaid would mean I wouldn't be able to pay my rent that month!!

When I said "strangers" before I didn't mean that the person/people would be strange or unqualified etc, I meant that they would be strangers to the children if they hadn't already been in childcare with them and that could cause the child distress which is also unfair!

Do you definitely not get paid?? I always thought the court system paid your employer so that they could still pay you?

Savvy_Sue

The court system pays an allowance. Your employer can EITHER not pay you anything, OR pay you your wages less the court allowance. You get a form for your employer to sign beforehand, on which the employer confirms that they WILL be deducting your court allowance. If your employer says they will carry on paying your full salary, you don't get the court allowance.

The form also asks if the employee can work 'odd' days or half-days if not needed in court. Presumably you get the full allowance whether you were needed or not if the employer says you'll have to be off for the full period.

When my colleague did jury service, we actually paid full wages the month they did it, then deducted the allowance they'd had from the court the following month. We didn't know early enough in the month how much allowance they would get, because we were happy for them to come in for odd or half days if not needed. Our payroll people said this wasn't allowed officially (to pay upfront and then deduct later), but in practice many companies do this.

bestpud

gghh wrote: »

Why should anyone have to lose wages???? :mad:
I never knew this until reading on here and that's completely unfair! I'm a single mum, one child at school, one in nursery while I work. If I got called to do jury service I would be completely stuffed!! 2 weeks (possibly more) unpaid would mean I wouldn't be able to pay my rent that month!!

When I said "strangers" before I didn't mean that the person/people would be strange or unqualified etc, I meant that they would be strangers to the children if they hadn't already been in childcare with them and that could cause the child distress which is also unfair!

Do you definitely not get paid?? I always thought the court system paid your employer so that they could still pay you?

You can claim expenses but there is an upper limit per day and childcare expenses are lumped in with loss of income expenses as far as I can tell i.e. you lose out if you need to claim both!

I guess it depends how expensive any extra childcare is and how much you earn.

All expenses have to be paid and claimed back as well (unless you argue it will cause you severe financial hardship) so that must be difficult for people without any financial leeway.

Janepig

gghh wrote: »

Why should anyone have to lose wages???? :mad:
I never knew this until reading on here and that's completely unfair! I'm a single mum, one child at school, one in nursery while I work. If I got called to do jury service I would be completely stuffed!! 2 weeks (possibly more) unpaid would mean I wouldn't be able to pay my rent that month!!

When I said "strangers" before I didn't mean that the person/people would be strange or unqualified etc, I meant that they would be strangers to the children if they hadn't already been in childcare with them and that could cause the child distress which is also unfair!

Do you definitely not get paid?? I always thought the court system paid your employer so that they could still pay you?

Afaik you rarely get paid as much as you earn (unless you don't earn much). As someone else has mentioned on this thread, they had to take annual leave so they could do jury service as their employer wouldn't pay them, although I'm not sure if that's entirely legal (although it may be). And someone who is self-employed would probably lose out quite a bit.

I may be wrong but I would imagine it rarely, if ever happens that someone has to use paid childcare to do jury service, or certainly not for a pre-schooler, but imo I don't think it would be enormously detrimental to the child, I think it would actually be worse for the parent - particularly as children are often marevellous at being very miserable about being dropped off at nursery/school while mum or dad are in sight, and are then happy as larry once they've gone - meanwhile mum and dad feel awful all day! But I'm sure there's plenty of people that would disagree with me!

It's far from an ideal system, but the criminal justice system seems to put alot of store by it and I think it'll be a very long time before it's done away with.

Jxx

Js_Other_Half

Financial recompense for jury duty:
http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/docs/infoabout/juryservice/HMCS_Allowances_RFC-793-Eng.pdf

shirlgirl2004

thatgirlsam wrote: »

gosh i think that was lucky then ...excused or deferred ?

i was told in no uncertain terms that having no childcare was not a reason , i could defer if i wished

i decided to get it over and done with .... i am lucky that my mum looked after my child who is not at school

Excused. That was a number of years ago and I've never been called back.

shirlgirl2004

Janepig wrote: »

Or the other side of the coin, why should working parents, who have already made the difficult decision to use daycare, lose wages and precious time with their children, when stay at home parents who would not lose money and who already spend all their time with their children could do it?

Jxx

Why? because their children will not be damaged by spending extra time in a setting in which they are already familiar whereas my children would have to spend time away from me for the first time and be in an alien environment. This has nothing to do with money it is the welfare of the children that is important to me.