Underwood Carpenter Employee Handbook - Latest 02 11 16

• The mother/primary adopter must be entitled to maternity or adoption leave or statutory
maternity or adoption pay or maternity allowance and have ended/given notice to end
the maternity/adoption entitlements; and
• The employee seeking SPL must have worked for the Company 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 still be
working for the Company at the start of each period of SPL; and
• The other parent/partner must have worked for 26 weeks in the 66 weeks leading up to the
due date and have earned above the minimum earnings threshold; and
• Give the correct notice, including a declaration and evidence that both parents meet the
employment and earnings tests.
It’s possible that only one parent may be eligible to take SPL, e.g. the other partner may be selfemployed
and so will not be eligible to take SPL, but will still need to pass the earnings test so that
their partner, an employee, can qualify. If both parents meet the qualifying requirements, there will
be a joint entitlement and they will have to decide how to share the SPL once the mother/primary
adopter has curtailed their maternity/adoption leave.
Shared Parental Leave (SPL)
Shared Parental Leave can be taken at any time after the 2 weeks of compulsory adoption or
maternity leave as long as the SPL is taken before the child’s first birthday and providing that there
is some untaken maternity/adoption leave to share.
In order for Shared Parental Leave to start:
• The mother or primary adopter must have returned to work; or
• The mother or primary adopter must have given a ‘binding notice’ (a decision that can’t be
changed) to the Company of the date when they’ll end their maternity or adoption leave;
and
• Ended or given a binding notice to end their maternity/adoption pay.
Therefore SPL can start for the father/partner while the mother or adopter is still on maternity or
adoption leave if she’s given binding notice to end her leave (and pay if appropriate).
Alternatively the SPL can start at the end of the maternity/adoption leave or sometime later. Both
parents can either take SPL at the same time, or separately in blocks (if eligible).
An employee must opt in for SPL and give the Company at least 8 weeks’ notice before the start of
the first period of SPL. Employees can give their employer up to 3 separate notices – each notice
can be for a block of leave or the notice may request a pattern of discontinuous leave involving
different periods of leave.
Please note that discontinuous means blocks of 1 week e.g. 1 week off, 1 week in work, 1 week off
etc.)
The Company will agree to blocks of continuous leave, and will consider requests for blocks of
discontinuous leave, but, depending on the needs of the business, requests for discontinuous leave
may be refused and the total weeks of leave will need to be taken in a single continuous block. The
Company will ensure that a response is provided to requests for discontinuous leave within 14 days
of receiving the request.
SPL can start on any day of the week and may only be taken in complete weeks.
If the request for discontinuous leave is refused then the employee can withdraw their request on or
before the 15th day after the request was made and it will not count as one of their 3 requests, if
the employee doesn’t do this then they must take the total amount of leave they had requested in
Employee Handbook Issue Date: November 2016
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