Additional parental leave and pay — a summary

The right to take additional parental leave (APL) and pay has been abolished for all babies born or matched for adoption on or after 5 April 2015. Here is a short summary of the key elements of this right, for members whose babies were born or matched before that date.

The APL rules enabled an eligible father or partner to take up to 26 weeks’ time off work to care for a child before their first birthday, as long as the mother had returned to work without using up her full 52 weeks of statutory maternity or adoption leave.

To qualify the father needed to:

• be an employee;

• have 26 weeks’ continuous service;

• be responsible for the child and intend to use the leave to take care of the child;

• have a partner who was eligible for maternity leave, SMP or maternity allowance who had returned to work without using up their full 52 weeks of leave; and

• have followed the right statutory procedure.

The right to APL had a number of restrictions. In particular:

• APL could only start 20 weeks after the birth or adoption;

• APL could be taken for between two and 26 weeks’ and had to be taken in complete weeks and in one continuous period; and

• both parents were unable to be away on leave at the same time unless one of them took holiday.

An employee on APL was entitled to additional statutory paternity pay, as long as:

• the mother had not already used up her entitlement to 39 weeks of SMP or MA;

• she had at least two weeks’ of entitlement to SMP or MA left; and

• the employee met the earnings threshold.

ASPP was paid at the lower of the flat rate — £138.18 per week (2014-15) — and 90% of average earnings. It was only payable while the mother was entitled to SMP/MA. This meant that there was no right to payment for APL taken after the 39 week SMP/MA entitlement period had ended, unless a separate contractual entitlement had been negotiated.

You can find more detailed information about the right to additional paternity leave and pay on the Acas website.

www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1806