Shared Parental Leave

[greenman99]

Hello

I'm hoping someone can help.

Once our baby arrives my wife is planning on taking the first 6 months off . I'd like to take perhaps the first 4-6 weeks off.

My employer offers Shared Paternity Pay at the same rate as Maternity Pay which is 90% for 6 wks | 50% & SMP for 12 wks | SMP for 21 wks.

So I was thinking - great I can take the first 6 weeks off and not really be out of pocket as it get 90% of my pay. However my HR dept has interpreted the rules as follows -

As my wife is taking the first 6 months off she wouldn't be 'giving' me her leave until that point - months 7 & 8. And that falls within the period where only SMP is paid.

To me this doesn't sound right. Apparently I would be the 5th man to request SPL so I think I could challenge it.

I doubt we can afford for me to only get paid SMP for even 2 weeks never 6 weeks!

Do you think I have a case to challenge what HR have said?

Thanks in advance.

Well my DH doesn’t earn a fortune and I don’t earn a pittance but he does earn more than me, so it does make a difference to us which one of us is on SPL.

@ClareB83 yeap as i've mentioned in my comment, i'm the high earner at home but luckily it's just a few hundred of pounds difference between DH and I.

The time i'm on statutory it's going to be quite unviable as our finances are going to be properly hit by the £140/week like any other couple's but that's why since I know I was pregnant i've spent the minium and saved the most, so that I can have a more "normal" life whilst on statutory. I'm taking the minimum leave that is recommended for breastfeeding (6m).

I'm not sharing my leave with my husband for finance reasons but because I believe it's good for the father to also spent time with the baby on his own and also my career wont be stopped for a whole year.

What i'm doing is maximizing most of my leave, not starting the leave til due week and also using most of my holiday allowance at the end of the year, only taking week and a half before due date as holiday, Afther this when i'm supposed to be back to work and husband has the parental leave is when I'll spend my holidays. I'll be reducing my working weeks for 3 months and that way I can still continue enjoying from little one.

It can depend on the company, if the company offers an enhanced package then it is possible to have both parents off getting more than SMP. The company my DH works for does this.

My headband and I did shared parental leave because it was better for us financially. I did the first 4.5 months and was paid 90% for the first 4 weeks and 50% for the next 12 weeks statutory for the last 2. My husband took over and his pay started from the beginning so he had 90% for 6 weeks and 50% for 12 weeks so we barely had to ever go on statutory pay so it worked out financially much much better for us.

It becomes a vicious circle, men tend to want to take the later part of parental leave (or in parallel) so it’s low paid, this has a big impact if they are already the higher earner. Because they don’t take the leave the Mum becomes the default main carer so she’s the one who takes time off for all the child related stuff and / or goes part time, she earns even less...
Fortunately I earn more than DH, he still only took a month of leave due to some work commitments and his management were shocking about it. Rather depressing as it was much nicer going back knowing DS was at home with his dad rather than straight into full time Nursery.

My understanding of SPL is that you get 52 weeks to allocate between you less any amount of maternity leave your partner has taken. You can then either take that leave consecutively or concurrently e.g. if You wanted to take the 6 weeks off after the 2 weeks compulsory mat / pat leave you can both do that at the same time and you will both receive full pay for 3 weeks of that (so 6 weeks full pay in total) and 3 weeks half pay each. However you have used 12 weeks in total meaning you have 40 weeks left to use between you (at as many half pay weeks as you have left then at SMP). If you wanted to do it consecutively however with you taking over the last few months you will be at the SMP rate as your partner has already used the full entitlement to receive full and half pay.

As someone mentioned upthread it might be worth seeing what is the norm in your industry, my DH for example gets 18 weeks full pay regardless of when he takes it but he works in an industry where a few companies dominate the market and people move frequently between these companies, if it wasn't comparable people would be on the move pretty sharpish. If that's the case where you are then its worth pointing it out to HR, no harm in trying!

I think it depends on your workplace HR policy. I’m in the civil service and we’re allowed to be off at the same time (sharing the occupational maternity pay portion), although obviously that means the amount of time I’d have on occupational maternity pay goes down....

My understanding of SPL is that you get 52 weeks to allocate between you less any amount of maternity leave your partner has taken. You can then either take that leave consecutively or concurrently e.g. if You wanted to take the 6 weeks off after the 2 weeks compulsory mat / pat leave you can both do that at the same time and you will both receive full pay for 3 weeks of that (so 6 weeks full pay in total) and 3 weeks half pay each.

I'm not sure this is right - the woman has to give binding notice to end her maternity leave before the man can take SPL, so I think it's always borrowed from the future: eg. if she says she's going to return at 6 months the man is 'taking' months 7 & 8, even if the time is used in weeks 1 & 2, if that makes sense - it's like a loan of time to be paid back after maternity leave ends. So I don't think they can split the months 1 & 2 allowance in the way you suggest. I might be wrong, though.

This is what it says

www.workingfamilies.org.uk/articles/shared-parental-leave-sharing-leave-with-a-partner-or-splitting-up-leave/

How much and when?
Parents can take up to a maximum of 50 weeks as SPL, and a maximum of 37 weeks of Shared Parental Pay (ShPP). You can take SPL at a different time from your partner/other parent, or at the same time. For example, a woman can be on maternity leave and her partner can be on shared parental leave at the same time.

However as @FloydOnThePull has said it's only 6 weeks in total between 2 of you that can have the 90% , so they're used at the beginning at the same time then it'd only be 3 weeks at 90% and the remaining 33 at £140

Bakedbeans, that's not true as mother and father can take SPL at the same time.

It is true. They can only share 50 weeks SPL due to the fact the mother has to take 2 weeks compulsory mat leave after the birth. The parents can be on SPL at the same time but the mother has to curtail her mat leave to take SPL which she cannot do in the first 2 weeks as she as to be on compulsory mat leave

My understanding of SPL is that you get 52 weeks to allocate between you less any amount of maternity leave your partner has taken.

50 weeks as the woman has to take 2 weeks mat leave after the birth so can’t curtail her mat leave to start SPL during this time

I love how it's 'not financially viable' for the man to take stat pay. I know it's often the man who earns more but not always and yet if you're breastfeeding it's not all that easy for the woman to go back to work and yet somehow we find a way to make that viable.

This. Women have put up with shite mat pay for years but now it’s affecting men all hell breaks loose. 🙄

I meant not financially viable for both patents to be off getting just the shared paternity pay rather than just one person.

Parents*

Thanks for the comments everyone.

I work for a Local Authority so pretty confident they're correct in their interpretation of the legislation. If I challenged it I expect my baby would be at school by the time they got back to me with a response :)

I suppose both parents are far more likely to use SPL if their respective employers both pay great MP / SPP. The employer of a friend of mine (a father) pays MP/SPP at 100% for a year (!) which means he is definitely taking quite a bit of SPL. This must be quite rare though.

I think when people say it's not financially viable they mean that as a couple its not financially viable, rather than saying "its fine for the mother to earn less but there's no way, as a man, I'm reducing my income".

In my case there are other factors at play - my wife is pt student / pt self employed meaning a much greater drop income for her and more uncertainty in returning to previous pay levels. I also have 3 older children that are not her financial responsibility but are mine and just couldn't afford to live on SMP for a month or two.

It would've ideal to have saved up enough money to take a couple of months off unpaid but alas that just hasn't possible. I think I'll take a combination of paternity leave and annual leave.

Bakedbeans

It is true. They can only share 50 weeks SPL due to the fact the mother has to take 2 weeks compulsory mat leave after the birth. The parents can be on SPL at the same time but the mother has to curtail her mat leave to take SPL which she cannot do in the first 2 weeks as she as to be on compulsory mat leave

Yep, but the partner can still have weeks 1 and 2 off from the SPL allowance if not taking paternity leave. You said he couldnt have weeks 1 and 2 off but he can, just alongside the compulsory mat leave.