Shared parental leave - confusion!

[AveAtqueVale]

Please could someone help me sort this out in my head as I'm quite confused by the whole shared parental leave thing. I'm female and due third baby in October. Was a student during previous two pregnancies so shared parental leave wasn't an option. As I understand it I can 'give away' to my husband up to six months of mat pay and leave, but only the statutory pay?

I will have some occupational maternity pay, but that finishes at 6 months, and so if I took a full year of maternity leave I'd be on statutory pay only for months 6-9, then on no pay for the final three months. My question is can I 'give away' the statutory pay from months 6-9, but the time between months 9 and 12? So I would take 9 months off, the last three unpaid, followed by DH taking three months on statutory pay with me back at work?

I don't think we can afford for DH to be off on no pay even with me working as he's a higher earner than me, but we could manage with him on statutory if I was back at work. I feel like this is one of those things that's probably very simple but for some reason is really confusing me.

Grateful for any answers!

If you can afford to be unpaid for months 6-9 while your husband is working, why can’t you just save the statutory pay from months 6-9 to use in months 10-12?

Depends what his work shared parental leave policy states I would think? I don’t think you have have the unpaid 3 months early though? If need be could you put that pay aside to cover costs ? There is a planning tool here that might help? https://www.gov.uk/plan-shared-parental-leave-pay

The statutory SPL arrangements are that you and your partner collectively can't take more than 52 weeks maternity/SPL, of which a maximum of 39 weeks is paid leave. In other words, as a couple you can exceed what would be your statutory maternity leave and pay entitlement. There's a lot of flexibility as to how you use SPL and the paid component of it doesn't have to be used in a single block.

I've worked the example below using weeks rather than months as that's how maternity leave and SPL are calculated. From what you're saying, you could:

• Take 26 weeks maternity leave at occupational pay rates
• Give notice to end your maternity leave at the end of 26 weeks and convert the remainder into SPL
• You immediately switch to 13 weeks unpaid SPL
• You return to work
• Your partner then takes 13 weeks paid SPL (the pay rate will depend on his employers policy, but probably will be statutory pay)

In total you both will have taken 52 weeks leave, of which 39 weeks is paid and 13 weeks unpaid.

You can either give him the paid time off from 6-9 months or if you don't need the income at 6-9 months then you stay off but save it and use when your husband is off between 9-12 months.

That being said if your employers are flexible they may allow it. Shared leave was new when we took it and my husbands employers were keen on him having the time off at all. Employers have probably got used to the requests a bit more now.

Sorry - that first paragraph should say 'you CAN'T exceed' what would have been you maternity leave and pay entitlement!

You also need to look at his spl policy. He may be entitled to some time off at increased pay that you can use

For example, my employer's spl entitlement is the same as the maternity: 6 months full pay.