Parental bereavement leave and pay form

To take leave, the employee must simply notify you of the date of the child’s death, when they want leave to start and whether that leave will be one or two weeks, and they can do this verbally. However, to receive statutory pay, the employee must give certain information to you in writing. So, our form can usefully be used to cover both leave and pay.

Notification requirements

An employee must give you notification of: (1) the date of the child’s death; (2) the date on which they choose their period of parental bereavement leave (PBL) to start; and (3) whether they intend that period of PBL to be one or two weeks. There’s no statutory requirement for the employee’s notice here to be in writing. Therefore, a telephone call, voicemail or text message from the employee to their line manager, which contains the required information, will meet the PBL notification requirements. However, the rules on statutory parental bereavement pay (SPBP) require certain information to be given to you in writing. It therefore makes sense for you to have a standard form that employees can use in these circumstances to cover both PBL and SPBP and this is where our Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay Form comes in.

Length of notice

The length of notice that an employee must give to you depends on how long after the child’s death the PBL is due to start:

• for PBL commencing within the period of 56 days beginning with the date of the child’s death, the employee must notify you before they’re due to start work on the day they want their PBL to begin. If this is not reasonably practicable, the employee must notify you as soon as is reasonably practicable
• for PBL commencing after the end of the period of 56 days beginning with the date of the child’s death, the employee must give you at least one week’s notice to take PBL.

Notice and evidence requirements for pay

An employee must give you notice specifying the week(s) in respect of which SPBP payments are to be made to them, in writing if you so request. They must give this notice before the end of the period of 28 days beginning with the first day of that period. If it wasn’t reasonably practicable to give it in that time, it can be given as soon as is reasonably practicable thereafter. They must also provide evidence of their entitlement to SPBP (at the same time as the notice) by providing you with the following in writing: (1) their name; (2) the date of the child’s death; and (3) a declaration that they meet one of the statutory criteria of being a bereaved parent.

Practical position

What this means in practice is that an employee can notify you verbally of their intention to take PBL, but you can then ask them to fill in our form both to enable you to keep written records and to ensure that they provide the appropriate written declaration for SPBP purposes (if they’re eligible for pay).