Change of shared parental leave request

Where an employee wishes to change the start or end date of any period of shared parental leave, they must give you written notice of variation. This is what our form is for.

Variation or cancellation

Once an employee has become entitled to a period of shared parental leave (SPL) as a result of requesting either a single continuous period or discontinuous blocks of leave (see our Period of Leave Notice for Shared Parental Leave), they can subsequently give you a written notice to vary that period of SPL. This notice must state what periods of SPL the employee is entitled to and it may do any of the following:

• vary the start or end date of any period of SPL, provided it’s given not less than eight weeks before both the date varied and the new date
• request that a single period of SPL becomes discontinuous periods of SPL, or vice versa
• cancel the SPL requested, provided it’s given not less than eight weeks before the SPL cancelled by the notice was due to start.

Notices to vary SPL still count towards the cap of three period of leave notices. So, once three notices have been given, further notices are only possible with your agreement. However, notices to vary SPL as a result of the child being born or placed for adoption earlier or later than the expected week of childbirth (EWC) or expected placement date don’t count towards the cap.

Notice contents

Our Change of Shared Parental Leave Request is drafted to ensure the employee complies with the statutory requirements. It asks them to complete the details of their current SPL start and end dates and their proposed new SPL start and end dates, and then to sign and date the form and return it to their line manager. The same provisions then apply in respect of an employee’s notice to vary SPL as they do for an initial period of leave notice, i.e. if they’ve requested a single continuous period of leave in their variation notice, they will automatically be entitled to have that request granted (provided the notice periods have been complied with), but this isn’t the case for discontinuous periods of leave -C see our Acknowledgement of Single Period of SPL and Acknowledgement of Discontinuous Periods of SPL.

Variation due to early birth

Where the employee varies their start date for SPL as a result of the child being born earlier than the first day of the EWC, in circumstances where they were entitled to take a period of SPL with a start date in the eight weeks following the EWC, the notice requirement is modified so that notice of variation can be given as soon as reasonably practicable after the date of birth. This is provided that the period of SPL is now to start the same length of time after the child’s birth as it would have started had time been counted from the first day of the EWC, and that the employee didn’t also request a variation to the amount of SPL.