Shared Parental Leave – Explained
The final round of changes to “family-friendly” rights under the current government came into effect on 5th April 2015.
This introduced a new system of shared parental leave to replace additional paternity leave, for parents of babies due from 5th April.
The Key Facts
- After 2 or 4 weeks’ compulsory maternity leave following the baby’s birth, a mother can opt to take the remaining leave as “shared parental leave” – which can then be shared with the baby’s father
- Both parents can take leave at the same time
- Leave can be taken in several separate “blocks”
- All leave must be used by the baby’s first birthday
- Not everyone qualifies for shared parental leave; both parents need to have at least 26 weeks' service with their current employer and earn at least the minimum threshold required to qualify for maternity allowance.
So what is Shared Parental Leave?
Shared parental leave overlaps with a mother's right to take maternity leave and exists alongside her partner's right to take one or two weeks' paternity leave. It replaces the right to additional paternity leave.
The basic idea is that the parents of a child (including adoptive parents) can decide how to divide a total of 52 weeks of leave between them.
So, for example, the mother could decide to take just a few weeks' leave to recover from the birth in addition to the compulsory two-week maternity leave following childbirth with the rest of the leave being taken by her partner.
Statutory shared parental pay is available for up to 39 weeks, reduced by the number of weeks of statutory maternity pay taken by the mother.
However, it is paid only at the same flat rate as the lower rate of maternity pay. Only the mother can take the initial six weeks of leave at 90% of her weekly earnings.
An important feature of the new scheme is that the periods of shared parental leave do not have to be consecutive. The two parents can take leave at the same time, provided that the total amount of leave taken does not exceed 52 weeks.
The Regulations even provide that - with his or her employer's agreement - an individual can take discontinuous blocks of leave.
This means, for example, that the mother can take leave for a period and then return to work while her partner takes some leave, with the mother then going on leave again for the remaining period.
Employers are likely to be worried about the administrative burden and uncertainty caused by the flexible nature of shared parental leave.
However, each parent must give eight weeks' notice of his or her intention to take shared parental leave (in the mother's case, this will be in addition to the notice that she must give in relation to her maternity leave).
The employer is also entitled to see a copy of the child's birth certificate and to be given the other parent's national insurance number and the name and address of his or her employer.
Complications may set in if the parents want to take the leave in blocks, with a period of work in between, but this can be done only if the employer agrees.
There is no requirement for the employer to give the request reasonable consideration and no limitation on the employer's ability to refuse.
Usually the parents will have two different employers and they may find themselves in a difficult position if one employer agrees to the discontinuous leave and the other refuses.
There is no need for the two employers to confer or reach agreement between them as to the pattern of leave to be taken.
If one of the employers then refuses a request for leave to be taken in blocks, they will have time to give fresh notice of continuous leave, for which the employer's agreement is not needed.
Recommendations
1.Develop a clearly worded policy that will guide employees through the process of taking shared parental leave.
2.Engage in conversations with any mums or dads to be, and establish their intentions. If you have good communication channels with your employees anyway, then this won’t be too much of a change for you.
3.Encourage employees to think about what pattern of shared parental leave they want and make the request early
If you want to find out more about the issues covered in this article, please contact Alistair Booth, Managing Director of The HR Booth on 0844 842 7730
Alternatively, if you would like some general HR support contact us on 01592 858333 and ask to speak to our dedicated HR and Employability Adviser, Allison McKenzie.
