Shared Parental Leave Policy Summary

This page provides a summary of the Shared Parental Leave Policy. For full details, please refer to the complete Policy on the Shared Parental Leave Policy page.

What is this Policy about?

Shared Parental Leave (SPL) gives parents flexibility to choose how they use their family leave entitlement in the year following their child's birth or adoption. SPL can be used where both parents work at the University or where one parent works for the University and the other parent works for another employer or is self-employed (subject to eligibility criteria).

Who is this Policy for?

All University employees have a right to take SPL, subject to both parents meeting the eligibility criteria.

What do I need to know?

Sharing family leave between parents

SPL can be used to split family leave and pay between both parents. One parent can choose to give up some of their maternity/adoption leave entitlement and transfer this to the other parent to take as SPL.

Converting maternity/adoption leave to SPL

Alternatively, one parent can choose to end their maternity/adoption leave and take their remaining entitlement as SPL. In this situation an employee may opt to return to work between these periods of leave.

How SPL is taken

SPL can either be taken:

In one block, known as continuous leave; or
Split into several blocks, known as discontinuous leave.

Amount of leave available

Parents can share 50 weeks of leave between them.

Amount of pay available

37 weeks of Statutory Shared Parental Pay are available for parents to share between them (subject to meeting eligibility criteria). The University offers 26 weeks full pay to employees taking shared parental pay (this includes any statutory shared parental pay that an employee is eligible to receive). The remaining paid weeks of SPL are paid at the statutory rate set by the government.

If the parent taking shared parental leave works for another employer, they should check with them what pay they are entitled to when taking SPL.

Notification procedure

To apply for SPL, employees must complete two forms:

The SPL Notification of Entitlement Form (CHRIS/75A); and
The SPL Application Form (CHRIS/75B).

The notification process is different for continuous and discontinuous leave, full details are given in the Shared Parental Leave Guidance. This guidance also outlines the process that an employee needs to follow if they want to change the dates of their SPL.