How does shared parental leave work?

[lucieloos]

If I want to take 39 weeks paid maternity leave and then I end my maternity leave and switch to annual leave could my husband then use the remaining 11 weeks to take time off with us? Would this part of the leave be unpaid?

Yes, that part is unpaid whomever uses it

Yes as shimmering said, you have 39 weeks paid and 11 unpaid to split how you wish. If you use the 39 paid weeks then your husband would not get paid for the 11.

I think that for your husband to benefit from parental leave you'd have to prove he was the primary carer for that time and that you've returned to full time work.

DH and I are planning on doing SPL - I'm taking wks 1-28 and he's taking wks 28+

Think, it doesn't say that on the government website it says you can share the leave and both be off at the same time so long as you give notice that you are stopping your maternity leave which I would be as I would be on annual leave.

Thanks for all the replies. Good to know that DH could use the last bit if he wanted to.

Oh I see... so does it mean that only one of us can benefit from stat mat/pat pay at any time ...however the working status of the second parent doesn't matter?

I need to look into this further.

Yes only one of you can be paid, you can't both be off and receive mat/pat pay for it but you can both be off with only one receiving pay.

Myself and my husband have done shared parental leave, husband goes back to work after the new year.
My mat leave started on the day my son was born (he came a bit unexpectedly!) And I went back to work when he turned 39 weeks. My husband has just taken 13 weeks and this has been unpaid. I have taken holiday to work shorter weeks and my taking holiday has not compromised the arrangement as my maternity leave had already ended.
According to documents I've seen you can run the 2 together and be off together, however the set up does seem complicated and you would be using 2 weeks of leave for 1 week of actual leave if you see what I mean.

Why would you be using 2 weeks of leave for 1 week off? As far as my employer is concerned my maternity leave has finished and I'm using my leave as I normally would. They won't be making me doubling up on it just because my husband is taking the rest of my maternity. That would be like basically saying whilst I'm off on maternity if my husband wants to use any of his annual leave he would have to double up?

You're totally right. I meant if both of you were off at the same time on shared parental leave, which I believe can be done from documents I've seen, then you would be 'doubling up' as such. Obv any annual leave taken (or leave that is not shared parental leave) would not be counted in this way.

You can both take leave at the same time and both get stat pay but then you are eating into your 39 weeks total.

lucie there shouldn't be any problem with you taking annual leave while your partner is on paternity leave (paid or unpaid). At my work they encourage you to take the last couple of weeks of mat leave as annual leave so you get paid and come back with less holiday time.

Hi OP, if it helps i'm taking 7 and half months and my husband is taking the last 6 weeks, he'll be paid then after his 6 weeks would be when SMP stops.

Annual leave will not affected SPL entitlement. You have 39 weeks on statutory pay to use between you, this can be taken concurrently or consecutively it doesn't matter - the only thing they'll monitor is how much in total you've been paid between you. I'm taking 26 weeks as my employer pays enhanced but then returning to work and my partner will take another 13 weeks on SPL. I think it's a fantastic benefit that allows daddies to bond with their babies too :)

I'm working all this out at the moment - I must say the information out there is not great! Maternity Action's website is the best I have seen for understanding your rights.

OP, do you realise you can use SPL for your partner to take time off work at any point during the year, they don't need to tack it onto the end? Am just wondering why you'd choose to both be off together at the end (with you using AL and him using SPL)?

I'm planning for DH to be off alongside me for the first 6 weeks after the birth (when I think I'll need him the most!) - I'll then be using my accrued annual leave at the end so I don't need to return to work before 12 months.

It is worth checking the maternity and SPL enhanced benefits of your employers carefully: mine has exactly the same enhanced pay package for maternity leave and SPL, so I don't lose out if DH takes time off whilst I am entitled to enhanced pay. However, I know this isn't the case for all employers and it it is quite common for the SPL enhanced pay to be less generous.

I really don't understand how it works enough. I want to take 39 weeks off using maternity leave. I'm then using up my annual leave before going back to work. If DH takes time off sooner what does that mean for me?

Lucie the two of you have 52 weeks to take between you, of which the first 39 are paid and the rest is not. If DH takes time off and gets SPL, that eats into your entitlement.

So if you took 39 weeks, and he took 10 weeks within the first 39, you would get SPL for 29 weeks and he'd get it for his 10. The rest of your leave would be unpaid.

If he take his leave once you are back at work or using annual leave, he doesn't get paid.

Worth checking if he's entitled to anything extra at his work.

We are planning to do SPL with me taking most of it and DH taking a couple of months. The only annoying thing is I would like to take my eg 10 month mat leave, then tag on my accrued annual leave for another month or so, then hand over to DH for his 2 months, but can't as all leave has to be taken with a year of birth, so me taking annual leave before handing over would eat into the time available for him.

I'll take a week or so holiday at the same time as DH SPL to ease the transitition then keep a couple of weeks for when his leave ends and we're trying to settle DD into a nursery.

I think he just gets the standard 2 weeks paternity at work. We haven't decided if he's going to take any extra yet but was just wondering how it all works. It seems whichever way we did it then it would cost us quite a bit as would mean one of us would be off work at some point with no pay. I think that's why we were thinking of dh doing it at the end of my maternity so by then we could see if we had managed to save enough extra money to afford it or not.

lucie do check the policies of your employers as enhanced pay can make a big difference - if my DH takes time off in the first six weeks after the baby is born he gets full pay. I'll obviously lose 4 weeks of SMP but we can afford that whereas 4 weeks of DH being unpaid would be v costly.

During the first 6 weeks of maternity I get 6 weeks full pay. I don't know if that's enhanced or the same for everybody? So are you saying if dh also took time off during that time he would also get 90% pay but say he took 4 weeks we would then lose 4 week smp at the end?

DH should get two weeks paternity leave on full pay. That doesn't affect your SPL at all. Beyond that, it depends what his work policy is. Some offer paid leave to dads the same as mums.

Ah ok he doesn't get paid leave so does that mean if he took a few weeks off at the same time as me right after his 2 weeks paternity had finished he wouldn't get anything?

If he took time off right after his paternity leave he could either use his holiday allowance, which wouldn't affect you, or he can take it as shared parental leave. If he did that, he'd get statutory pay, and that would reduce the number of weeks you could claim statutory pay for.

We did SPL - 6 months each. The maternity action website has the best explanation as PP has said.
You have your year to split between you. Of course either employer might offer a better deal than statutory so you'd need to check contracts etc.

Ok thanks, I think if we do anything we will stick with him taking time after the 39 weeks while I'm on leave. It just gets complicated otherwise.