Shared Parental Leave and Pay

Under the new Shared Parental Leave arrangements, eligible parents of children due to be born or adopted on or after 5 April 2015 have more flexibility as to how they take time off work to care for their child. Mothers can share up to 50 weeks’ maternity leave and 37 weeks’ pay with their partner so that both parents are able to maintain a strong link to their workplace.

The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service’s guidance on the new system, ‘Shared Parental Leave: a good practice guide for employers and employees’, can be found here.

The Government has developed an online calculator to help prospective parents work out what their leave and pay entitlements under the new system are.  The calculator can be found here.