Maternity leave/Shared parental - In so confused!

[Wanderer1]

I am hoping that someone understands this better than I do as I just can't work out what to do for best. I work for a small charity with no HR and only one other person has ever had maternity leave.

I would like to take around 9 months off and then have my partner take around 2-3 at the end. In addition he would have 4 weeks off at the beginning (two weeks paternity plus two weeks SPL or holiday).

I get Statutory Maternity Pay, he gets full pay for 18 weeks on SPL. Is there a way I can cut my pay short in the early months to allow him to get full pay when he takes leave at the end?

Or is there another way to do it? Anywhere I can go for official advice?

A final complication is that I'm not even sure I want to go back to my job and in that case maybe it would be better for him to just take 25 weeks of SPL concurrently with me at the start.

Thank you in advance for any advice/knowledge/suggestions

Hi OP. SMP is paid buy the government and you can’t vary it, so no way to change what’s paid. I don’t know about your second question though, it might depend on what your DH company’s policy is

Basically your SMP is from the government. His is enhanced shared leave pay from his company

Shared Parental Leave can basically work however you and your partner want it to. It is complicated and you need to give notice by particular dates depending on your choices. Here is the official guide

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

Hi OP, there's statutory pay and company pay. The statutory pay is for 39 weeks regardless of who takes the leave and whether it is concurrent or not.

Whether your partner gets full pay or not will depend on his company policy. At ours you only get the full pay if you take the leave during the first half of the baby's life. At other companies it might not matter when it is taken.

It's all down to his company policy to be honest. He needs to speak to someone in his HR department. Maybe ask him to print on the maternity policy for his work and see what it says.

OK, so his pay and my Stat pay may not be related at all. That would be great. We will look more closely at his policy. Thanks everyone.

Once you have ended your mat leave and swapped it to shared parental leave you will be entitled to a minimum of statutory shared parental pay or whatever your company policy is, and your OH will be entitled to a minimum of statutory shared parental pay or whatever his company policy is - up the the maximum 37 weeks between you, less any weeks of maternity pay you have received.

You can both take SPL concurrently - so you could be on SPL receiving statutory shared parental pay while he is also on SPL receiving pay. Or you can take them separately with one of you working while the other is on SPL. You can also still be on mat leave while he is on SPL, provided you have confirmed your mat leave end dates.

I get 12 weeks fully paid mat leave, and my husband gets 2weeks paternity plus 4 weeks enhanced SPL pay. So our plan is:

Me take 4 months maternity - 3 mths paid, 1 mth SMP, him take 2 weeks paternity (plus some annual leave), then

Me end maternity leave and convert to SPL - at which point I rtw and he goes off for the remainder of our stat leave. He'll get 4weeks full pay as per his company policy, and then he'll receive statutory shared parental pay until we've used up all our 37 weeks pay, then the last couple of months he'll be on unpaid SPL.

It is bloody confusing though! I am really hoping I've worked that all out right - and I'm our company finance manager, you'd think I'd have a decent handle on it.

We’ve done SPL/Mat leave twice now.
First was First 9m me off, Last 3m him off (unpaid bit).
Second 3m off together (he still took unpaid) then I had next 6mo off.

I resented going back at 9mo with first - the hardest bit is the beginning, things had got fun by 9m.
I advise people to do big chunk together in the early days, it’s brutal!!

Look at first 6wls SPL vs Mat leave, I think mat leave rate was better, with my second I took 6wks mat leave before birth (I expected correctly to be unable to work), then SPL from then on.
Also SPL gives 20 keeping in touch days rather than 10.

Maternity action line (google it) are the experts.

Hi we're doing something similar, also if you don't have enhanced maternity pay I don't think you have to return to work, my work stipulates I have to return to work for 3 months only if I take the enhanced xxx

I have an enhanced package 12 weeks full pay 27 weeks stat, 13 weeks zero pay.

My husband has 2 weeks paternity at full and can take up to 10 weeks shared at full pay.

My work has said any shared parental leave my husband takes will come out of my stat mat pay so the 27 weeks part. Unfortunately it won't come out of my zero paid part.

He's going to take his 2 weeks followed by 6 weeks shared (so we'll have 8 weeks together). Then he'll take 4 weeks shared when I return to work.

If your husband has a generous shared parental leave policy chances are his HR will have the documents you need to arrange it, at my work you have to give 8 weeks notice before starting shared parental leave.

Hope that helps. :)