Statutory Shared Parental Leave allows eligible parents to share time off work during the first year of their child's life (or within the first year following adoption). An employee may be entitled to Statutory Shared Parental Leave (ShPL) and Statutory Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) if their baby is due (or adopted) on or after 5th April 2015.
Where an eligible mother/adopter curtails her maternity/adoption leave before the end of the 52 weeks to which she is entitled, the balance of untaken maternity/adoption leave may be taken by either the mother/adopter, or eligible partner, or both, as shared parental leave. All the Shared Parental Leave must be taken before the child’s first birthday or the first anniversary of the date of placement in adoption cases.
An eligible employee who curtails her maternity or adoption leave and pay (or Maternity Allowance) can then:
take the rest of the 52 weeks maternity/adoption leave (up to a maximum of 50 weeks) as Statutory Shared Parental Leave.
take the rest of the 39 weeks of maternity/adoption pay or Maternity Allowance (up to a maximum of 37 weeks) as Statutory Shared Parental Pay.
A mother must take a minimum of 2 weeks maternity leave following a baby's birth.
For example, a mother and her partner are both eligible for Shared Parental Leave. The mother ends her maternity leave after 12 weeks, leaving 40 weeks (of the total 52 week entitlement) available to be shared. She takes 30 weeks and her partner takes the other 10 weeks.
To qualify for Shared Parental Leave as a mother/adopter, an employee must share the care of the child with their husband, wife, civil partner, partner or joint adopter; and must qualify for maternity pay/leave, maternity allowance or adoption pay/leave. The employee must also have been employed continuously for 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the due date (adoption match date) and be employed by the same employer while taking ShPL.
To be eligible for Shared Parental Leave as a partner, an employee must have been working for at least 26 of the 66 weeks before the baby is due (or matched), and earn on average above the lower earnings limit.
To qualify for Shared Parental Pay as a mother/adopter, an employee must qualify for Statutory Maternity Pay, or Statutory Adoption Pay.
To qualify for Shared Parental Pay as a partner, an employee must qualify for Statutory Paternity Pay and have a partner who qualifies for Statutory Maternity Pay, Maternity Allowance or Statutory Adoption Pay.
An employee can take their shared parental leave in separate blocks over time, as agreed with their employer. This makes it more flexible than, for example, Statutory Maternity Leave which must be taken as a single continuous block. So, even if a partner is not eligible for Shared Parental Leave/Pay, a mother/adopter may choose to take Shared Parental Leave to take advantage of this flexibility.
When a mother (or adopter) chooses to end her maternity (or adoption) leave it is referred to as curtailing the leave and also curtails the associated maternity (or adoption pay period) during which she would be eligible to be paid SMP (or SAP).
Shared Parental Leave can only start once the child has been born or adopted and the mother/adopter has curtailed her maternity/adoption leave before the full 52 weeks is taken. Leave can be curtailed in one of 2 ways:
Maternity/Adoption leave can be ended in one of 2 ways:
By a mother or adopter returning to work, which ends maternity or adoption leave (and pay) and entitles the mother to shared parental leave to share her remaining maternity leave with her partner, but she will not be entitled to shared parental pay.
By giving notice to curtail her maternity or adoption leave at a future date (this date must be at least 8 weeks after giving the notice). This entitles her to both shared parental leave and pay (assuming the other eligibility rules are met).
Sometimes an employee may need to revoke the curtailment of their maternity or adoption leave e.g. if the employee's partner has died or the employee is not eligible for shared parental leave.
See also