Shared Parental Leave and Pay

As of 5^th April 2015 the government introduced shared parental leave/pay as a positive step in order to allow both mothers and fathers to spend more time with their children.

Shared Parental Leave will enable eligible mothers, fathers, partners and adopters to choose how to share time off work after their child is born or placed for adoption. This could involve returning to work for part of the time and then resuming leave at a later date. From April 2018 the rate will be £145.18 per week.

You can only start Shared Parental Leave (SPL) or Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) once the child has been born or placed for adoption.

To start shared parental leave or shared parental pay the mother must end her maternity leave (for SPL) or her Maternity Allowance or maternity pay (for ShPP). If she doesn’t get maternity leave (but she ends her Maternity Allowance or pay early) her partner might still get SPL.

If you’re adopting then you or your partner must end any adoption leave or adoption pay early instead.

Each parent qualifies separately for Shared Parental Leave and Statutory Shared Parental Pay.

You can get ShPP if you’re an employee and one of the following applies:

• you’re eligible for Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) or Statutory Adoption Pay (SAP)
• you’re eligible for Statutory Paternity Pay (SPP) and your partner is eligible for SMP, Maternity Allowance (MA) or SAP

You can also get ShPP if you’re a worker and you’re eligible for SMP or SPP.

If you’re eligible you can take:

• the remaining leave as SPL (52 weeks minus any weeks of maternity or adoption leave)
• the remaining pay as ShPP (39 weeks minus any weeks of maternity pay, maternity allowance or adoption pay)

• If you’re eligible for shared parental leave you can use it to take leave in blocks separated by periods of work, instead of taking it all in one go.

You and your partner can each work up to 20 days while you’re taking SPL. These are called ‘Shared Parental Leave in touch’ (or SPLIT) days.

These days are in addition to the 10 ‘keeping in touch’ (or KIT) days available to those on maternity or adoption leave.

If you require any further information or have any questions regarding Shared Parental Leave and Pay, please contact payrollclientsupport@aab.uk or your usual AAB contact.