The Government is reforming the statutory pay and leave entitlements
available to employed parents. From next year, a new entitlement to Shared
Parental Leave and Pay (SPL) will be introduced. This will give parents more
flexibility in the way they share leave and pay between them. Where relevant,
employers will need to update their payroll systems to accommodate making
statutory parental payments to employees taking SPL. And to enable these
payments to be paid discontinuously, if necessary.
The current entitlement to statutory maternity/adoption leave is 52 weeks (39
paid) and two week’s statutory paternity leave and pay. This all unchanged.
What is new is that working parents of a baby due on or after 5 April 2015 may
be eligible to take SPL.
Under SPL, mothers (or adopters) will be able to choose to end their
maternity/adoption leave and pay early – at any point from two weeks after the
birth/placement – and share their untaken pay and leave with their partner.
The idea is to give families greater choice over their childcare arrangements in
the first year. It no longer has to be a year for mum and two weeks for dad. It’s
intended to enable fathers to take a greater role in caring for a child, and to
help both parents to better balance childcare responsibilities with staying in
work.
Parents will be able to take their leave in phases, for example 20 weeks for
the mother/adopter, followed by 20 weeks for the father/partner, followed by
10 weeks for the mother/adopter. So statutory parental pay could be paid over
one or two discontinuous periods.
We expect employers to start getting notifications of intention to take SPL from
February 2015. We will provide online tools to check eligibility.
What’s more, Andrew’s many years of experience means that there are few situations that he has not encountered meaning the advice he offers is based on a working knowledge not text book learning.