Employees may be entitled to Shared Parental Leave (SPL) and Statutory Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) if:
- their baby is due on or after 5 April 2015
- they adopt a child on or after 5 April 2015
The following individuals may be entitled to Shared Parental Leave:
- the mother/adopter; and
- one of the following:
- the father of the child (in the case of birth); or
- the partner of the child's mother/ adopter.
For these purposes a ‘partner’ is a spouse, civil partner or someone (whether of the same sex or a different sex) living with the mother/adopter in an enduring family relationship (but is not the mother/adopter’s child, parent, grandchild, grandparent, sibling, aunt, uncle, niece or nephew).
Both parents must share the main responsibility for the care of the child at the time of the birth/placement for adoption.
Additionally an employee seeking to take Shared Parental Leave must satisfy all of the following criteria:
- where the employee is the mother/adopter of the child they must be entitled to statutory maternity/adoption leave;
- where the employee is the father or partner of the mother/adopter, the mother/adopter must be entitled to statutory maternity pay (‘SMP’) or statutory adoption pay (‘SAP’), statutory maternity or adoption leave, or maternity allowance (‘MA’);
- the employee must still be employed by the University in the week before the leave is to be taken;
- the employee must have a minimum of 26 weeks' continuous employment at the end of the Qualifying Week;
- the other parent must meet the ‘employment and earnings test’ requiring them in the 66 weeks leading up to the EWC (or in the case of adoption the Qualifying Week), to have worked for at least 26 weeks and earned an average of at least £30 per week (this is correct as of 2015 but may change annually) for 13 of those weeks;
- both parents must give the necessary statutory notices and declarations (as summarised below), including notice to end any maternity or adoption leave, SMP or SAP, or MA periods.
The Qualifying Week is the 15th week before the Expected week of Childbirth (EWC) or, where the child is being adopted, the week the adoption agency notifies the employee that they have been matched with a child for adoption
The Expected Week of Childbirth (EWC) is the week, beginning on a Sunday, in which the doctor or midwife expects the child to be born.