Shared parental leave

[Judethepud]

Hi all, I have read all the threads on this topic already and about 1 million articles but just want to make sure my understanding us correct.
I want to take 9 months maternity leave and my partner take the remaining 3 months as shared parental leave.
My employer offers enhanced maternity pay for the first 6 months then I will get stat for 3 then unpaid (which partner will take). When notifying my employer, completing forms etc am I right in thinking I should compete everything saying I am taking normal maternity leave to ensure I receive the enhanced payments, and then 8 weeks before I want to return to work I notify my employer and my partner notifys his that I am curtailing my maternity allowance to allow my partner to take the remaining as shared parental leave?

Sorry for the long question!

Hmm, I gave my partner 1 month of my unpaid leave, and both of us filled out the forms before my mat leave started (we have been on leave concurrently). It didn't affect my enhanced leave at all. The main thing was to ensure we weren't both getting paid statutorily. It sounds like you want his leave to kick in after yours ends. Maybe you can ask your company's HR in a hypothetical way?

I’m pretty certain that you both need to complete requests for Shared parental leave even if his time off is exclusively in the unpaid period. The full year entitlement is classed as leave in terms of the employment protection you would both benefit from (I.e partners work can’t refuse the leave, there’s some protections against redundancy etc).

for your work HR it’ll make no odds but for his it ensures they put it through properly and that he continues to accrue holiday through the 3 months. His work will contact yours though to confirm you’ve consented for the leave to be shared and that the dates marry up so you both need to have set it up as shared leave from the start.

you can also confirm your curtailment in advance of having the baby, there should be a notice of curtailment form which you can then amend whilst on leave if you change your mind… but it’s one less admin task to think about whilst you’re off.

be prepared for your HR teams to not have a clue how to handle this 🤣 I work for a huge global employer and expected they would be used to this type of request. Oh how wrong I was!

Applications for Shared Parental Leave (SPL) must be made at least 8 weeks before the leave is due to start. So you are correct.

However, if you want 9 months leave but only 6 months SMP then you need to apply 8 weeks before the 3 months SMP period starts so this is not paid to you.

Normally employees apply for mat leave and SPL at the same time. This is because the mother has to formally give up some of her mat leave and pay. It’s also easier in terms of planning to do the forms at the same time.

Thanks all for your responses, really appreciate it.

What you have initially suggested is correct. That is what we did. Though gave our employers more notice than 8 weeks, out of consideration for planning cover.

Have you checked his contract for the shared parental leave section? (Different to the paternity section - might be a few pages along).

My partner has had one set of shared leave and is about to have another with a different employer. For one, he got five months full pay (the paternity leave section said just two weeks). For this one, he gets 2.5 months full pay. My work gives men six months full pay - matches the maternity leave provision. Just mentioning as we weren't aware the first time until one of his colleagues told him as he had taken it previously.

We had to fill in the forms and the curtailment form in advance of me going on leave. My HR and his HR had to communicate before to sort it out.

@A1b2c3d4e5f6g7 we haven't yet and he hasn't notified his employer yet (not due until May) so we haven't seen his policies but I'll definitely be having a good look at the policies and contract to make sure I don't miss anything. Those are all very generous paid leave options, fingers crossed my partner has something similar!