Shared parental leave and pay policy

Our policy statement sets out the statutory rules relating to shared parental leave and pay. It ensures employees fully understand their rights, as well as their obligations, in relation to ending their maternity or adoption leave early, notifying you of their entitlement and intention to take shared parental leave and when they want their shared parental leave to start and end.

Policy statement

Our Shared Parental Leave and Pay Policy statement reflects the statutory provisions on shared parental leave and pay. If you wish to provide enhanced rights to either shared parental leave or pay, you will need to adapt your policy statement accordingly. A failure to grant an eligible employee shared parental leave or pay will give them the right to bring a claim against you in the employment tribunal.

Shared parental leave

The right to shared parental leave and statutory shared parental pay enables eligible employees who are parents (whether by birth or adoption) to take paid and/or unpaid leave within the first year of their child’s life or the first year after their child’s placement for adoption, provided always that the eligible mother or adopter has volunteered to end their maternity leave and/or pay or adoption leave and/or pay early (or has already returned to work early). Instead, they can then opt into the shared parental leave regime, enabling the balance of their untaken leave and pay to be shared between them and the other eligible parent or adopter, i.e. their spouse, civil partner or cohabiting partner, or the father of their child, up to a maximum of 50 weeks of shared parental leave and 37 weeks of shared parental pay. Shared parental leave is entirely optional and parents or adopters are not obliged to take it. The default position is that the mother or adopter will continue to be entitled to 52 weeks of maternity leave or adoption leave (and 39 weeks of statutory maternity pay, maternity allowance or statutory adoption pay, if eligible).