Eligibility

Acas guidance explains that to qualify for shared parental leave and pay a mother must be entitled to maternity or adoption leave, or statutory maternity or adoption pay or maternity allowance, and must share the main responsibility for caring for the child with the child’s father or her partner. In addition, they will be required to follow a two-step process to establish eligibility.

Step 1 – Continuity test: A parent seeking to take SPL must have worked for the same employer for at least 26 weeks at the end of the 15th week before the week in which the child is due (or at the week in which an adopter was notified of having been matched with a child for adoption) and be still employed in the first week that Shared Parental Leave is to be taken.

The partner wishing to share parental leave has to have worked for 26 weeks in the 66 weeks leading up to the due date and have earned above the Maternity Allowance threshold of £30 a week in 13 of the 66 weeks.

Step 2 – Individual eligibility for pay: To qualify for Shared Parental Pay the parent must, as well as passing the continuity test, also have earned an average salary of the lower earnings limit or more (currently £112) for the eight weeks’ prior to the 15th week before the expected week of confinement (EWC).

It is up to the mother or adopter to decide whether to continue on Maternity Leave or opt to take SPL.

SPL may be taken at any time within the period which begins two weeks after the child is born or date of the placement, and ends 52 weeks after that date. The leave must be taken in complete weeks and may be taken either in a continuous period, which an employer cannot refuse, or in a discontinuous period, which the employer can refuse.

An employed mother and her partner who are entitled to shared parental leave can expect to receive the following statutory amounts of leave and pay:

• 52 weeks of leave can be taken as shared parental leave (after the mother has taken the minimum period of statutory maternity leave of two weeks, or four weeks if she works in a factory);

• 39 weeks of pay or maternity allowance as statutory Shared Parental Pay (which includes the minimum period of Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) for two weeks, or four weeks where the mother works in a factory);

• Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) is paid at the rate of £139.58 a week or 90% of an employee’s average weekly earnings, whichever is lower. ShPP is different to Statutory Maternity Pay where the first six weeks are more generous and is paid at the rate of 90% of what the woman earned before she went on maternity leave, regardless of how much she is paid. After the first six weeks, the rate of statutory parental pay is the same as SMP.