On the 29 November 2013 the government published its response to the consultation on the administration of Shared Parental Leave and Pay (ShPL), which is due to come into force in April 2015. The new leave system will allow eligible working families to have more choice about how they balance their work and caring commitments. Parents can choose to be at home together or to work at different times and share the care of their child. The key elements of the government response to shared parental leave and pay are that:
- Maternity leave and pay unchanged at 52 weeks’ maternity leave and 39 weeks’ maternity pay /allowance (in case of single mother or one or both partners not eligible for shared parental leave (ShPL)).
- Paternity Leave and pay unchanged (2 weeks in one continuous block).
- Additional Paternity Leave and pay to be abolished.
- New right to unpaid time off for fathers to attend up to 2 ante-natal appointments (strictly speaking up to 6.5 hours for each appointment).
- Notification periods for paternity leave and pay will be aligned with the end of the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth or as soon as reasonably practicable.
- Women who give binding notice before birth to end their maternity leave will have up to 6 weeks following the birth to revoke that notice.
- Employees will need to give 8 weeks notice of their eligibility to take shared parental leave and will need to include a non-binding indication at the outset of when they expect to take the leave.
- Employees will be required to give 8 weeks notice to take specific periods of leave, or to change a previous notification. There will be cap of 3 on such notifications unless both employer and employee agree by mutual consent that a request will not count towards the cap.
- The time limit for taking shared parental leave will be set at 52 weeks from birth.
- Parents to be allowed to have up to 20 days at work per parent whilst on shared parental leave. The days that will be available to parents on shared parental leave will be renamed to distinguish them from KIT days for use during the maternity leave period. The KIT-type days on shared parental leave will be additional to the 10 KIT days which will continue to be available to a woman whilst she is on maternity leave.
- Employees who take shared parental leave will have the right to return to the same job when returning from periods of statutory leave comprising of maternity, paternity, adoption or shared parental leave that totals 26 weeks or less in aggregate; even if the leave is taken in discontinuous blocks.
- Leave must be taken in blocks of no less than a week (a week is defined as “any period of seven days” which is the same as that applying to additional paternity leave).
- Both parents can be on ShPL together, though obviously if they are off together for 1 week, then that reduces the balance by 2 weeks.
- If both parents submit their suggested leave patterns to their employers, each employer has 2 weeks in which to agree or disagree. If disagreement, the parents must reconvene to decide on alternative plans and re-submit to employers.
- An employer can refuse the employee’s suggested leave patterns, however, if no agreement can be reached, each employee must take their ShPL in one continuous block, but of a date of the employee’s choosing.
- Although ShPL applies to babies born after 6 April 2015, it needs to be in force 2014/15 to allow for premature babies.
If you have any questions regarding the current policies in place for maternity and paternity leave and pay please follow the link below to visit the Gov.uk website https://www.gov.uk/maternity-allowance alternatively give ePayMe a call on 0800 622 6119 and a member of our team would be happy to help.