Shared parental leave

[JJ456]

I swear I’m not an idiot but I’ve read the government website about SPL and I am still unsure.

I want to give 2 weeks off the end of my my mat leave and give it to my partner (who is actually a woman but she’s the father in the eyes of the law) to tack onto the end of paternity.

How do I do that? Is it through our employers?

We’re both eligible for mat/pat/SPL in terms of our jobs.

Im same sex and working out parental leave also and don't know what you mean about her being a man in the eyes of the law? Only one parent can take a full year off? If a woman gave birth and wanted to go straight back to work she could and her partner could have the full year. But it can only be one?

You can share it like you are doing? Can even do 50/50.

Check with your employers on their processes.

Basically you need to inform your work in some way that you're only taking 50 weeks and your partner needs to inform her she's taking 2 weeks paternity and 2 weeks SPL.

Tbh, for just 2 week, I'd just use annual leave and keep all your maternity leave (unless she's out of annual leave)

I think that in order to use SPL you have to first end your maternity leave, and then you can both/either start SPL. So be careful that you won't lose maternity benefits as SPL is only statutory pay.

Yes, your partner needs to get hold of her employer's ShPL application form. You may need to declare your dates and therefore how much of your ShPL you are using, so they can check how much ShPL and ShPP your partner is entitled to.

We took SPL a couple of years ago. Check your work policies - for my husband and I they both contained a form for SPL. From memory, both companies' forms asked what each of you were taking and where the other worked, Then you signed your own and the other person's too. I guess I'm theory the HR Depts check with each other to make sure it tallies but whether they did or not I have no idea!

Yeah sorry you’re right I didn’t explain that well. I just meant she had the same fights as a father - I.e 2 weeks off plus shared leave from me. I will be taking most of the leave because I’m the birth parent and I also hate my job haha

Thanks all this is really helpful, I will have us both talk to our employers.

@villamariavintrapp so does that mean she can’t take an extra 2 weeks while I’m claiming maternity pay from my employer?

@Twizbe she is already taking some AL but wanting to add the SPL on the end of that.

That's what it meant for us. We're nhs and it was a few years ago so might have changed, but yes it meant I would have had to give up maternity pay from that point on to be on statutory pay. So would only have made sense to do it later on in May leave as would have been on stat pay or unpaid anyway. But then would have meant neither of us having an income for those weeks, so just couldn't make it work for us.

@villamariavintrapp

I think it has changed. My husband and I both work for the NHS and he took a week of shared parental leave when little one was 3 weeks and there's been no issue with my maternity pay.

@JJ456

We just had to submit forms to each employer. I just asked for less weeks of maternity leave, and he applied for shared parental. He had to put my employment details down, I assume to check!

Ah, I'd assumed you mean 2 weeks PL plus 2 weeks.

It's worth talking to your employer. You can take the leave at the same time. But if you're planning to take all the paid mat leave, I think your partner will be on unpaid leave ... I'm not 100% sure though and it will depend on whether her employer enhance their SPL

Thank you all, I’ll see what employers say. If partners lead will be unpaid anyway, they might just let her take it to be honest. I really appreciate all the different perspectives and feel slightly less clueless!

There's a maximum pay period (between maternity pay and ShPP) of 39 weeks.

If you take 39+ weeks of maternity leave, your partner's ShPL will be unpaid.

If you take, for example, 35 weeks of maternity leave, then your partner could get 4 weeks of ShPP (£156.66 per week) but additional weeks past that would be unpaid.