Can someone explain to me how shared parental leave works as if I am a five year old???

[Helpmeimtired]

I understand the concept and essentially 'what it is', but can't make out how it technically works with regards to maternity pay etc.

I appreciate that's dependent on the package both you and your partner's company offers.

Is there anyone with a good understanding who'd be willing to explain this to me in laymans terms!

thanks in advance.

Have you had a look at this. It sets it out step by step. And there are worked examples included.

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

Basically between you both you can have 52 weeks leave. You can do it together, in blocks or one after the other.

What you chose to do may depend on how much occupational maternity pay is offered by your respective employers.

You can check how much statutory pay you will get on this tool:
https://www.gov.uk/plan-shared-parental-leave-pay

You should also be able to talk it through with your HR.

You can share up to 50 weeks leave and 37 weeks pay. (By law the mother needs to take 2 weeks off after the birth) The mother needs to cut short her leave and pay in order to free up time for other parent to take. It depends on what each employer offers as to how good the pay might be.

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

Has a lot of info

It’s a really complicated policy to understand! As someone who has used it, I’m going to do
my best at explaining it.

In the UK, there is a right to 52 weeks of maternity leave (ignoring annual leave). The first 2 weeks after birth must be taken by the mum but the other 50 weeks can be shared with the other parent. In practice, you have to “sacrifice” maternity leave to turn it into shared parental leave (SPL). However, that doesn’t mean only the other parent can take it - either parent can use the SPL.

The same principle applies to pay. Ignoring any enhanced pay offered by employers, if you are eligible, there are 39 weeks of statutory maternity pay. As the mum has to take the first 2 weeks, this means that there are potentially 37 weeks of statutory shared parental pay available. So there’s this pot of 37 weeks of pay that you can share between the parents.

If your employer does offer enhanced pay, you need to check if this is just for maternity leave or if it applies to SPL too. As it often just applies to maternity leave and is one of the reasons that SPL isn’t very well used.

This is quite a helpful site if you want to read more: https://www.acas.org.uk/shared-parental-leave-and-pay

Hope that helps.

Thanks, that helps break it down.

If there's 50 weeks worth of leave that can be shared between 2 parents, if both parents are off for 12 weeks, does that deduct 24 (12x2) weeks from the total of 50, as both parents are off at the same time?

Yes, the spl is taken by you each, so whatever you each take will reduce the total remaining allowance. Check with your individual employers though if you want to take leave at the same time, as some employers very oddly will only allow for one of you to be paid at a time - even.if youre both employed by different employers!

Yes, it would use 24 weeks of the 50 (unfortunately!).

DH and I are using it. We both had 6 weeks off at the start which meant we had 46 weeks shared. I’m using all the stat pay and going back at 39 weeks so DH will have 7 weeks at the end. Any enhanced pay from your employer is separate to SPL pay. Eg DH employer will offer 12 weeks full pay at any point in the first year. So when he takes over the last 7 weeks this will be on full pay. My employer pays 20 weeks full pay which doesn’t detract from his full pay. It is complicated and my HR department were rubbish at explaining things!

Yes

Hi