Shared parental leave how does pay work?

[Newhere1993]

Hello

Just wondered if anyone had any experience with using shared parental leave. My partner is planning on 2 weeks paternity then 2 weeks annual leave then hoping for 4 weeks shared parental leave. Just wondered if anyone knows how it works as that will be in the first 6 weeks of maternity pay where I believe its still a fair amount of your salary. I didn't know if he'd just get statutory paternity pay and how that would work as I get 18 weeks half pay top up from my work so would this take from that? Sorry complete muddle in my head 😂

Thanks for anyone who can make sense of it!

Hello, we used shared parental leave but from memory you can't trigger it to start for your partner until you finish maternity leave, as it basically uses up whatever maternity leave you don't use. So I took 7 months maternity leave and then 4 weeks annual leave, and for those 4 weeks and a further 8 weeks my DH took shared parental leave. We weren't able to take the leave at the same time (only my annual leave as I was technically back in work). From memory that's how it worked but you could also ask HR/payroll?

His shared parental leave will be taken from the end of your maternity leave, so if you are planning to take the rest of the 52 weeks then his spl will be unpaid as his leave will come out of the last weeks, which are unpaid. If you are stopping your leave before the end of the 39 weeks where you would get statutory maternity pay, then he will be paid the statutory pay that you have left over. Eg if you are going back to work after 37 weeks, he would be paid the 2 weeks of remaining statutory pay, and then 2 weeks unpaid from those last unpaid weeks.

I'm pretty sure he'd not get paid anything, as it would "come out" of the last part of your mat leave which is unpaid. Most people I know, the partner has taken shared parental leave at the end once the mother has returned to work, to maximise time off before needing childcare.

There is a shared parental leave calculator, which might help you: https://www.gov.uk/plan-shared-parental-leave-pay You click which weeks you want to take and which he wants to take and it will tell you how much leave and pay is available. As pp have said, it will depend on how much total leave you want to take to determine what pay / leave is leftover to transfer to your DP.

His employer should have a policy on shared parental leave. Once he starts shared parental leave your maternity leave finishes but you can also be on shared parental leave. You can both be off at the same time.

My DH took his when I went back to work so sorry I don’t know how that part works. They pjs him separately to me as I was back at work and he was on shared parental leave based on his salary.

You'll both need to speak to your employers about their SPL policies. My understanding (and it's been a few years) is that you'll need to end your maternity leave and go onto SPL as well.

DH's employer pays SPL at the rate of the relevant maternity leave weeks that are given up - so when I went back after 9 months and DH took a month of SPL, it was unpaid. If I had gone back after a fortnight, he would have had the enhanced maternity leave package until it ran out.

I'm not sure how it works if you're both off at the same time, and whether you have any choice in terms of the weeks given up.

You can take leave at the same time. I think the pay may depend on how much maternity leave you are taking before annual leave. So does his allocation come out of the last month, 2 months etc of the 12 months?