Introductions / Stat Adoption Leave

[topcat2014]

Does Statutory Adoption Leave have to start straight after introductions?

That probably seems a dumb question - but I am only planning to take about 3 weeks SAL, and want to do that in addition to introductions, rather than to include it - and think I may need to work for (say) a week between the two.

Not sure my employer could manage me being off for five weeks straight

For me it started on the date of the matching certificate - which was the 1st day of introductions. I’m a teacher though and so don’t have annual leave, and I didn’t even question this so it may be that you can say when you’d like.

However my partner, having the “paternity” leave, took an additional 6 weeks of unpaid parental leave in addition to the 2 weeks statutory, which you are allowed to do for any child. The only issue there is that you get 18 weeks in total per child. This started at the beginning of intros.

You can do KIT days during shared leave/SAP but I don’t think during parental leave, as I think parental leave must be taken in week chunks... just incase your work needed you to come in.

Acas has some useful information I think.

I had the same plan as you. Saved all my AL only to realise when the placement date kicked in I went straight into adoption leave. Some organisation may differ

My employers have said from the date our child actually moves in (end of intros), my adoption leave should begin. This is to ensure parity with women giving birth, who have to begin mat leave the day the baby is born, even if they've taken Annual leave up til that point. Other employers might differ though. I think there is no hard rule about the start date for adoption leave.

Placement normally happens right on the back of intros, ie you spend increasing amounts of time with child then bring child home.

Are you the primary/sole carer or is there a DP involved? If you’re on your own, who’s holding the baby while you’re at work?

DW is SAHP already, so no major worries generally. Just trying to find a way of fitting everything in whilst being in charge of finance (and payroll) for a small company.

Ah okay.

I think this means it would have to start on day of placement.

From gov.uk:

Statutory Adoption Leave
Employees can take up to 52 weeks’ Statutory Adoption Leave. The first 26 weeks is known as ‘Ordinary Adoption Leave’, the last 26 weeks as ‘Additional Adoption Leave’.

Leave can start:

on the date the child starts living with the employee or up to 14 days before the expected placement date (UK adoptions)
when an employee has been matched with a child to be placed with them by a UK adoption agency
when the child arrives in the UK or within 28 days of this date (overseas adoptions)
the day the child’s born or the day after (parents in surrogacy arrangements)

Other people have answered the question you asked, but I just wanted to say that emotionally, I'm not sure that what you are proposing would work very well. That week when LO first comes home will be all hands on deck, especially if you already have DC.

All people are replaceable at work, at home, not so much.

If it helps OP, I was a single adopter and also head of finance (and payroll) for a small company and was out of the country for 3 months (intercountry adoption) and then off totally (or part-time) for another 3 months. So it's perfectly doable and this was 12 years ago prior to cloud based systems.

You need a back up plan in place because even though your DW is already a SAHP you may find she needs significantly more support than you are expecting. You really need to plan for this in case it happens. This board is full of people struggling terribly in the first months of adoption, who have Post adoption depression, or who are struggling to bond and often it is their OH who has picked up the slack.

I can't tell you how much you need to plan for this (even if it never becomes necessary).

And if the company can't survive without you then you're not paid enough

So look at:

• using a payroll bureau temporarily - it only costs less than £100 a month to pay someone else to do payroll. Or if your payroll package is desktop based look at a free online system like Payroo.
• make sure you are using systems that can all be done online. No idea how big the company is or what package you're using but most systems now have a cloud-based version and most have built in payroll functions so not even any need to post journals anymore. Systems like Xero (amongst others of course) can post bank entries with little input (though some need regular refreshing).
• sign up to something like Receiptbank and email all purchase invoices to them - they enter and post them all for you if you're using a system they can link to (Xero, Quickbooks Sage etc all the big boys). For £10-20 per month - why wouldn't you?
• if you're not using an online system - why not?! Now is the time to change, if the company is VERY small, a free system like Quickfile will do though you will have to have a separate payroll solution as there isn't one built in.

Get planning!

Don't wait until it's clear that you can't take the minimum amount of time and then go back to normal before thinking this through. The worst that will happen if you don't need the extra time is that you have a more flexible accounting solution.

If I can run a finance function from Kazahstan with a 58k dial up connection, I'm sure you can do it with the technology available now.