Shared parental pay vs enhanced maternity pay

[CiderDivaLime]

I am currently applying for Shared Parental Leave, with the hope that my husband can have 6 weeks leave at the same time as me, straight after his paternity leave. Shared parental leave is not common in my company and therefore my HR department are fairly inexperienced in terms of technicalities. I have been told today that if we take shared parental leave at that time, my enhanced maternity pay will be stopped and I will receive shared parental pay (c£172 a week) for those 6 weeks. From people’s experience, is this accurate, or a misunderstanding by HR?

It depends on how many weeks you plan to take in total because you are giving him 6 weeks of time which will take 6 weeks of your time. They might be wrong or right depending on that. The time you take the leave is irrelevant, so the fact he's taking it at the same time as you doesn't matter (see doc below).

I found this civil service advice (link below) really helpful when planning our SPL - you can find it by searching "civil service shared parental leave" too. It is based on civil service 6 months of full pay but it really helped me understand what you can and can't do with SPL to help us decide what we wanted to take. It was way more helpful than my HR team.

The only thing it doesn't say is that generally companies only top up shared parental pay under their enhanced shared parental pay policy, they don't normally pay for the 3 unpaid months at the end. Or at least that's what happened with mine.

Good luck figuring it out!

www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ba8add2ed915d2bb2f5631a/SPL_Having_a_baby_HMG_FV.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiXk8P2iIiEAxXziv0HHdnZBBkQFnoECBIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3H9cJHugkAXe9_5rcsbuQz

I think they're wrong

https://maternityaction.org.uk/advice/shared-parental-leave-and-pay/

I don’t think you personally need to apply for shared parental you just need to declare that you will end you mat leave 6 weeks early. And give those 6 weeks for your husband to take the leave. He should apply for it not you.

Yes, you should stay on maternity leave and enhanced pay but tell them you're cutting your leave/pay period short so he takes the shared leave and pay (that pay will depend on what his employer offers)

Thank you for all the comments and links to resources! I am going to contact my HR department in the morning and say I won’t be taking SPL and will just take 33 weeks pay so DH can have 6 weeks leave and pay (I was only planning on 39 weeks leave so that‘a not a problem). Hopefully they’ll then confirm I can still get EMP. Sad that I had to come here for this advice rather than them being able to advise me that this was the best way to go about it!

You need to stay on maternity so that you get the enhanced pay. Not many employers pay enhanced for shared parental leave.
you claim your maternity from your employer and he claims his leave from his employer.

@CiderDivaLime Sounds great! My HR team were the same - I had to figure it out and argue the case with them. I think SPL is fairly confusing and must contribute to the low take up rates. In my industry I've seen some companies start "equal parental pay" instead where each parent can take parental leave independently from the other - that would make a huge difference

Yes stay on maternity and just 'give up' some of you leave for your partner to take
Btw their company can't say no to a request for shared parental leave if they're only requesting one block so don't worry about that