To be confused by Shared Parental Leave - can somehow help!?

[cocopopsforthewin]

Hi there

We're thinking of TTC #2 and whilst looking at financial implications we've considered Shared Parental Leave. I'd take the first 6 months off, then my DH would like 3 months after that. So I'd be 'creating' DH's parental leave by shortening my maternity leave for him to take instead.

Is DH entitled to any pay during those 3 months (these weeks would still be within the period I'd be entitled to stat may pay)? Would he get the statutory paternity pay rate during that time?

Another scenario - if we both took the first 3 months off together (with me continuing to take until 6 months), would he still be entitled to the statutory paternity pay then?

I've looked online a lot and maternityaction.org.uk seems to suggest so, but I've heard contradictions in media.

It's all quite confusing, but on the whole looks like a very good family friendly policy if you can make it work.

www.gov.uk/shared-parental-leave-and-pay

It seems you get 37 weeks paid with 50 week off in total.

DH and I did it. I took 6 months and he took 4 months after I went back to work. He got stat pay, although his employer chose to pay him a little more during the first 6 weeks, we were told this wasnt the norm. As I was the primary earner it made financial sense. DH said it was the most wonderful and rewarding time of his life. I found it tough going though, im not sure I'd want to do it again.

As a minimum, he'd get statutory pay. Depending on his employer, he may get more. Mine (civil service) matches maternity pay, so if you take any of the weeks where enhanced maternity is payable, you get enhanced shared parental pay to match. So if you both took the first three months, and you gave advance notice of ending your maternity after 3 months, he would effectively be taking months 4-6 of eligibility so would depend on the pay policy for those months. If you took 6 and he then took 3, he'd get whatever his entitlement was for months 7-9 (more likely to be statutory)

He’d still get paternity pay - he’d just have to be clear when arranging to take the leave what he’s taking as paternity leave and what as shared parental. In your second example he’d have the first two weeks after the birth as paternity, then three months shared parental.

I’m guessing if he’s only entitled to statutory paternity pay, he’d also only get statutory for shared parental? Makes things simpler, if not actually easier (in terms of paying the bills).

We're looking into this for baby due later this year. My husband works for the civil service and they have a very clear helpful guide for how it works www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-employee-policy-shared-parental-leave

This explains how it works if one of you is a civil servant but is also quite a useful general overview with lots of examples.

In terms of pay, he would be entitled to SSPP but employers vary on whether they top this up to OMP or not so you would need to check with both of your employers how it would work.

For us I plan to take 6 months paid and 3 months unpaid. My husband plans to take 3 months paid. His employer will pay him full pay for all 3 months and he will be off at the same time as me.

Thanks everyone!

DH is a teacher - he'll need to see what their policy is for SHared Parental Leave pay it seems. As long as he gets statutory then that's fine tbh as I'd be back at work and I'm the main earner anyway.

Teachers (if he's LEA and on burgundy book) will be statutory only for anything up to week 37

We did this, the advice we received was for the mother to first take all the enhanced maternity pay and only after that convert to shared parental leave. I think if you want to take ShPL together from the start then you will both only get SMP and miss out on enhanced maternity pay.

We did this - I took 5 months, which covered my enhanced mat pay period, followed by 4 weeks holiday. My husband took 4 months, with his first month overlapping my holiday so we could both be off together. He was paid statutory shared parental leave pay.
Was such a great decision and I'm so glad we did it.