Enhanced shared maternity pay - so confused

[Snowboardmum73]

Hi,

I am looking for for someone who has experience of shared enhanced maternity pay…all my husband was given from his HR dept is this…

• Shared Parental Leave - up to 37 weeks at full normal pay (shared between both parents)

Does this mean he can have full pay for 37 weeks and be off with me?

he also gets two weeks full pay paternity

I get 90% pay for the first 6 weeks then statutory.

he qualifies for both having been at the company 20plus years and in a management role.

i just never used it before and we got this updated allowance via email but not 100% sure what it really works out to mean…I have looked online but can’t find any company that matches this level of pay.

thank you! X

What a great policy! I know of one government department that does that, and think there are a couple of pharmaceutical companies that do it too, but it's definitely above and beyond most places!

It doesn't, however, mean both of you can be off all that time with him on full pay.

Shared parental leave involves sharing what the mother would otherwise be entitled to. A mother can take 39 weeks paid leave. 37 of these can be shared with her partner (she has to take the first two weeks after birth as leave).

Based on the policy you've outlined above, any that you share with your husband, he will receive full pay. You would receive whatever pay you're entitled to under your local policy.

So you could have 18 weeks off together with him on full pay on you on the 90% then SMP, but it then means you have 18 fewer weeks of the 52 maternity leave weeks you would have if you didn't do shared parental leave.

It is complicated, but I've been through it twice under two different employers so more than happy to talk through further if it helps.

No he would only get 37 weeks if you had no maternity leave at all (and legally you must take at least 6 weeks)

If you go back to work after 6 weeks of maternity leave then he can have 31 weeks off at full pay (6 weeks of which could be concurrent with yours). Or if you stay off for 18 weeks then go back to work, then he can have 18 weeks too, which can be concurrent with yours.

Occupational paternity leave offers can vary as they aren't legally mandated but it would be very unusual for an employer to offer such generous paternity pay without proof that the other parent is taking less leave

Yeah this, you can’t both have 37 weeks off basically, it’s shared.

So if he takes his full 37 weeks off full pay, you’d only be able to take 15 weeks yourself. If you take 37 weeks off then he can only take 15.

It’s worth having a look financially to see what you’re best off doing, especially as he gets full pay for all 37 weeks.

Apart from the 2 weeks paternity, the 37 weeks is shared, meaning that you have to “give up” however much maternity leave (eg 6 months) of the shared leave he decides to take.

No you have to share it so you do the first half then go back to work and he can then have the second half. It means only one parent off at a time

This is not correct. Shared parental leave can be taken by both parents at the same time.

This is the best explanation!

Just remember as well you do accrue annual leave on both maternity and shared parental leave so can use your accrued annual leave to be off together for longer.

We've taken shared parental leave twice. The first time I took 6 months off, went back to work and my DH took 3 months off. The second time we both took the first 4 months off together but that was because I had decided not to return to my job after maternity leave so it didn't matter that I was losing some of my own time off.

I'm pretty sure you can share the time however you like.

@ECPCR2's post has it right, but it's also worth considering the entitlement to unpaid maternity or shared parental leave too, and separating that from the pay. You have to take the first two weeks as maternity leave, and after that you can take up to 50 weeks of maternity leave, of which 37 are paid. You can choose to share the 50 weeks of leave with your partner, and this can be done at the same time or consecutively, or overlapping. You can also choose which partner takes the pay - given that there are only 37 weeks of pay to share between you, if you are both off at the same time during weeks 2-39, you might not both be claiming the pay at the same time.

What this means is that if you are not anyway planning to take a full year of maternity leave, you can allocate some of the unpaid last 13 weeks to yourself, and have your husband take time off at full pay during weeks 2-39. So this might look something like: You: weeks 1-6 90% pay, weeks 7-19 unpaid, weeks 20-39 statutory, back to work. Him: weeks 1-2 pat leave, weeks 7-19 full pay, back to work. Other combinations are possible. Basically what you are sharing is the government contribution to your maternity pay, which is the statutory part. His work will be claiming that from the government and then topping it up, so that is why you have to give up your right to it in order for him to have the better package from his work.

Apologies, just realised that last time I did this I think they made us take the ShPP at the start, until it ran out. In which case in my example above you would take the statutory pay at the same time as DH takes his enhanced pay, but you'd just shift onto unpaid SPL 13 weeks before you normally would, because you'd have 'given' those weeks of statutory pay to DH.

If you and DH want to maximise your time off together, you could also consider taking a 4-week gap between maternity and shared parental leave and using your right to 'unpaid parental leave'. That way DH could take an extra 4 weeks of fully-paid SPL with you.

Obviously don't do any of the above unless you and DH have fully combined finances.

Thank you, this has been really helpful.

I intend to go back to work myself after 9 months or not at all, as my mother in law has just been diagnosed with dementia so I may have to help her as she doesn’t have any family apart from us. And get a small part time job in between which would mean leaving my current job, as I don’t see them allowing me to reduce my hours.

Something like this would work…

You: weeks 1-6 90% pay, weeks 7-19 unpaid, weeks 20-39 statutory, back to work. Him: weeks 1-2 pat leave, weeks 7-19 full pay, back to work.

i have to have a c-section so help at home would be great. He didn’t get much time off last time with our daughter and then we both worked Covid and she went to nursery during the pandemic so I think he’s desperate to have some time at home with me and the baby but also have time to see his elderly mother as she lives alone.

I just wanted to check the wording and policy as it seemed so generous I almost didn’t believe it…I have asked him to check again with his HR dept. And we’ve never done shared leave before. I also rolled 5 days holiday from last year to this year so I have a lot of holiday allowance for this year…so using holiday is a really good idea…

thank you all so much…it’s been really helpful.