Shared parental leave - doesn't go nearly far enough

[jamtomorrow1]

I am pregnant and my husband and I are planning to make use of the shared parental leave provisions. I seem to be spending an increasing amount of time ranting about this, but I am nonplussed by the government's belief that allowing men to share the 52 weeks' leave is enough to create a situation of equality. If the mother's employer will offer enhanced maternity pay, but the father will be entitled to the statutory amount only, then it doesn't take a genius to realise that very many couples will be forced into a situation where the mother is the only one who can afford to take the time off. This struck me as contrary to the entire spirit of the legislation. I had a look at some of the relevant employment law decisions, which seem to be pervaded by terms like "the mother's special relationship with the child". How are we ever going to achieve anything like equality in opportunity to stay at home and opportunity to go back to work when there is a gender bias built into even supposedly equal-opportunities legislation?

Some newspapers think a discrimination case is quite likely.

Here's the official ACAS guidance which shows it is possible to take leave together:

m.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=4911

It's good that you can ask for blocks as well. So you could've gone back after 3m, him take months 3-6 and then you go back off for 3m or whatever - if your employer allowed!

If you can take leave at the same time, then it is even more confusing about enhanced maternity pay. If you were both off for weeks 1-13 and both had employers who paid full pay for that period, would you both get it or only one of you?

DH's employer offers 12 months of enhanced pay (something like 10% by month 12, but not to be sneezed at). If I worked there too, we would lose money by sharing parental leave as i would get the enhanced pay, and he wouldn't.

Rubbish, isn't it.

On the other hand, makes a change that it's the men being short changed.

I think the one who was getting the SMP, by default the mother.

Surely you'd both get it. My understanding is that the total leave taken is never more than 12 months. It's just up to the parents how they take it.

So, 2 parents both off for 3 months together would have 6 more months that could be taken by either of them. They would need to return to work when the baby was c9 months (depending how much leave taken before the birth).

If the parents didn't let the leave overlap then a full 12 months could be taken.

So, while the employer might be out of pocket by having to pay 2 employees enhanced pay (assuming that, worst case scenario financially, they worked for the same company), it would mean that the employees would be back at work sooner.

They would certainly both be entitled to SMP during this period, assuming no more than 9 months has been taken in total.

No, that's not how it works, the SMP has to pass from one to the other (because that is paid by the government!)

Otherwise both would take 6 weeks at 90% pay at the very least!

I think it is discriminatory that because I am a sahm due to disability my dh is unable to take advantage if time off with his child. What difference does it make to the government paying him statutory pay whether I am in employment or not?

That's a bit odd though, because even with statutory only packages, there would be an incentive to take overlapping time off early on and avoid the unpaid 3 months at the end. That's fine if that was the intention of the change in legislation, but it don't think it was the intention.

I would have loved to both have a couple of months off together at the start and would have willingly foregone a couple of months' may leave to get it.

Posted to soon, if I was a single mum I would get statutory maternity pay - just one parent working so what is the difference?

Information on the current rate for ShPP can be found at www.acas.org.uk/spl
If both parents qualify for ShPP they must decide who will receive it, or how it will be divided, and they must each inform their employer of their entitlement.

No, I don't think it works like that. The 6 weeks at 90% can only be paid to the mother - that's the shortest period she can take off.

The other partner can take (say) 6 weeks at the same time, but it's calculated as if this was running on from the first 6 weeks - so at usual weekly rate.

The more you overlap, the quicker you use up your 9 months allowance, but it's up to you (from next year, currently you can't overlap) whether you're both on SMP at the same time or whether you stretch it out by only having one parent off at a time.

Pico, you don't both get SMP (or shPP) rather if the periods overlap; but you do get protected employment rights etc.

Sleepyhead, I think you are wrong but that's just from reading the ACAS site!

You can't avoid the unpaid 3 months, Pico. You only get 9 months paid. If you both took the full paid allowance you'd only be able to take 4.5 months off.

As one of the reasons for taking a year is to avoid having a small baby in childcare (and defer the exorbitant cost), I should imagine only parents who would be using family care, or where one parent wasn't intending to return to work, would overlap the leave in practice.

I hope that a consequence of this isn't that women who take a full year are frowned upon and six months becomes the norm.

Really, Cherry? I hope a consequence is that men who take none are frowned on; from which, women taking less than a year will follow.

That's how I understand it Yonic, but none of the sites actually say that the overlapping period is paid or unpaid, so I may well be wrong!

If it's unpaid then I guess as few fathers will do this as took additional paternity leave before the legislation to allow sharing - ie virtually none, since it would leave most families paying the bills out of one lot of SMP.

Wouldn't it be great if both parents could take a year?

I doubt that most couples could afford that on SMP rates!

Some European countries are miles ahead on maternity benefits. Does anyone know what those countries do on sharing leave and paternity leave?

There's a country by country summary here

Sweden seems to be the most generous, but Denmark also has well paid leave, and although France only had 16 weeks, it's full pay for that time.

Sweden isn't generous at all women have no choice but to share.

That's not true:

Sweden has a highly developed and flexible parental leave scheme that allows and encourages both parents to spend time with their children. The mother and the father are together entitled to up to 16 months paid leave per child. Of this, 13 months are paidat 80% of the most recent income up to a ceiling of approximately 440,000 SEK (€51,100) per year in 2011and the remaining three months are paid at a flat rate of 180 SEK (€21) per day.
Each parent has a personal, non-transferable entitlement to two months of paid parental leave (of the total 16 months). The remaining 12 months can be freely shared between parents. The right to be absent from work full time is restricted to the child’s first 18 months.

So either parent can have 14 months and the other have two, or each can have eight months, or various combinations.