Reservation of place in the third year of leave due to child care

Royal Legislative Decree 5/2015, of 30 October, approving the consolidated text of the Law on the Basic Status of Public Employees (TREBEP), establishes in article 89.4 that “Career officials shall be entitled to a period of leave of absence not exceeding three years to care for each child, whether by nature or by permanent or pre-adoptive adoption or fostering, commencing from the date of birth or, where applicable, from the judicial or administrative decision. (…).The job performed shall be reserved for at least two years. After this period, this reservation will be made to a position in the same locality and of equal remuneration”.

The purpose of child care leave is to have the necessary time to take care of the child, it being understood that re-entry would be requested when the child no longer needs this care or for the maximum period of three years indicated.

This leave must be incorporated into the measures aimed at protecting minors, without any excessively flexible interpretation of it leading to situations that alter the general rules of the public service relating to the provision of jobs, which may lead to fraud under the law.

Among these measures, not only a reasonably long period of time is granted, but all the rights of the career officer are maintained together with the guarantee of job reservation for a period of two years, guaranteeing, otherwise “a position in the same locality and of equal pay.”

In other words, there is a guarantee that the job will be reserved, whether it is the same position that it had been occupying if the re-entry is made in the first two years, or a position in the same locality and with equal pay, if the re-entry is made in the third year of the leave, as is the case. Therefore, it is understood that, in compliance with the provisions of the Law, it is not possible to re-enter in a province other than the one in which the job reserve exists, while the right to reserve the position is inalienable.

Without prejudice to the foregoing, it is reported that, from this situation of leave, the staff member may participate in the contests for the provision of jobs that are convened (provided that she meets the general conditions required and the requirements determined in the call for proposals), so that, in case of obtaining another post in a different location, this new post would be awarded on which the reservation would be reserved for the time remaining, given that the destinations obtained by the contest are inalienable.

Likewise, once the official re-enters, she will be able to obtain another job in a different location by any of the provision procedures that allow it when the requirements required in each case are met.

All of the foregoing is without prejudice to recalling that, according to the regime of competences of this management center, the answers to queries issued by this general directorate are merely informative and, consequently, are not of a binding criterion, nor do they give rise to rights or expectations of law, nor imply any link with the type of procedures to which they refer. Furthermore, in the absence of a mandatory or binding nature, the bodies receiving such replies may, where appropriate, finally take a decision that does not correspond to the opinion contained therein.

The responses to queries contained in this bulletin address the issues raised in the light of the regulations in force at the time of their issuance, so that such responses may be affected by subsequent legislative changes or judicial decisions.