Parental Leave
The qualification rule was extended retrospectively on the 10th January 2002 to include those aged up to 5 years born on or after 15th December 1999 and in the case of disabled children leave was extended from 13 to 18 weeks. From 8th March 2013 it was extended to 18 weeks for all children. COPYRIGHT © 2021 THE CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PAYROLL PROFESSIONALS Maximum Entitlement • 13 weeks’ leave for parents of all children who qualify • 18 weeks’ leave for parents of disabled children who qualify. In addition, the employee: • remains in employment but need not be paid and will not be bound by any contractual terms except terms relating to good faith and confidentiality, which will bind the employer also • is, on return to work, entitled to return to his or her former job, or a job with the same or better status, terms and conditions as the former, and pension rights built up before leave was taken are protected. For redundancy purposes the leave period is treated as a period of continuous employment. Employers are encouraged to offer more than these key elements but must not offer less. Where no alternative policy is agreed the fallback scheme applies. Statutory fallback scheme provisions • leave can only be taken in blocks of a week at a time (parents of disabled children in blocks of less than a week), and • a maximum of four weeks leave can be taken in each year, and • the employee has to give 21 days’ notice of their intention to take leave, and • the employer has the right to postpone leave for up to 6 months where leave would unduly disrupt business except if it is to be taken immediately after maternity, paternity or adoption leave. Notice A maximum of four weeks leave may be taken in one block and the period of notice must be at least twice the period of leave to be taken. Parents are allowed to take a maximum of 4 weeks Parental Leave immediately following statutory maternity, additional paternity or adoption leave. No printing, copying or reproduction permitted. Record Keeping Employers are not required to keep records of parental leave taken but many choose to do so. Shared parental leave With effect for babies due on or after 5th April 2015/children matched for adoption on or after the same date, ‘shared parental leave’ was introduced that allows parents to share the care of the child for up to 50 weeks up to the child’s first birthday/one year since the placement for adoption. Further information on the payment requirements will be found in PART 4, STATUTORY PAYMENTS .
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