Paternity leave - statutory minimum or fully paid - industry standards?

[YouWithTheFace]

My husband just started a new job. At his old company, paternity leave was fully paid. He assumed the new one would be the same, as it is in the same industry but they seem surprised that he assumed this, even though he offered to start work after #2 was born to save them paying paternity leave. Can anyone tell me what is usual?

dh was offered only statutory paternity pay but ended up using annual leave as the SPP is pitiful and wouldn't have paid the mortgage

p.s. he is an accountant

Full pay in my job now but stat in my old one

DH gets statutory paternity pay, he's a nursery manager.

My public sector employer gives full pay.

OH works for a private company and he has statutory everything.

Dp's company (consultancy) paid full pay for the 2 weeks. My employer for dc1 (rail ) also did.

I am guessing from your post he will not actually be working for them for 26 weeks prior to the qualifying week so may not actually be entitled to SPP let alone an enhanced package.
As an employer I would be pretty that someone who had only been with me a couple of weeks assumed they would be entitled to an enhanced package when they are not even entitled to statutory. Even more that they hadn't consult the handbook to check the position before raising it.

if he hasnt been there long enough to qualify for SPP then he wont be entitled to the basic never mind enhanced leave/pay

www.gov.uk/paternity-pay-leave/eligibility - gives the eligibility criteria for paternity leave/pay.

It varies business to business as everyone says. But I'm not surprised they were a bit taken aback if your husband assumed he could walk into a new job and get two weeks full pay for paternity leave immediately...

Just the same as everyone else. Why would your husband assume he'd go straight into a new job and get 2 weeks fully paid paternity leave?

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I knowit sounds llike he was being really presumptuous but he was basically headhunted by them and they asked him to start when I was 39 weeks pregnant instead of waiting a couple of weeks, so how they were planning to handle the paternity leave was pretty relevant. Obviously he should have got them to be clearer. ..

Unfortunately, given that it was important to you and your husband how paternity was handled, he really should have checked with them before starting rather than assuming that everything was going to work out.