From: www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx

Employers should considered requests in a reasonable manner and can only refuse them if there is a business reasons for doing so, this reason must be from the following list:

the burden of additional costs
an inability to reorganise work amongst existing staff
an inability to recruit additional staff
a detrimental impact on quality
a detrimental impact on performance
detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand
insufficient work for the periods the employee proposes to work
a planned structural changes to the business.

My understanding is that requests can only be refused for one of the following reasons:

the burden of additional costs
an inability to reorganise work amongst existing staff
an inability to recruit additional staff
a detrimental impact on quality
a detrimental impact on performance
detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand
insufficient work for the periods the employee proposes to work
a planned structural changes to the business.

so their wanting to study does not fall under that and would be unreasonable of you to deny on those grounds.

No, there are only certain reasons to refuse - the fact that the employee wants to study something else is up to them. Gov.uk has more info - reasons as below.

•extra costs that will damage the business
•the work can’t be reorganised among other staff
•people can’t be recruited to do the work
•flexible working will affect quality and performance
•the business won’t be able to meet customer demand
•there’s a lack of work to do during the proposed working times
•the business is planning changes to the workforce

Thanks for the replies. I was aware of the list of reasons, but just really wanted clarification that this wasn't covered by any of them.

Thanks again.

In reply to Becki Thomas:

Ooh look we all replied at once - so now you definitely know the reasons! However the bottom line is either it can be accommodated or it can't. Why does it matter that the employee wants to study something else in their own time?

In reply to Annabel:

Yes thanks! It was a Line Manager who wanted to give this reasons as a way of refusal - I just wanted to clarify that reason behind request was irrelevant to decision and pass on to him.