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Home > Blog > Employment Legislation > Sharing Maternity Entitlements

Sharing Maternity Entitlements

posted 16th July 2010 at 14:58pm by Just Employment Law
Sharing Maternity Entitlements
After 3 April 2011 inclusive, new Regulations will be in force enabling mothers to transfer some of their maternity leave to the father as Additional Paternity Leave. Adopting couples will also benefit, with one partner being able to transfer some of their adoption leave entitlement to the other member of the adopting couple. 
 
Under these changes, a father who takes some of the mother’s maternity leave will be deemed to be taking “Additional Paternity Leave”. During this period, he may be entitled to receive “Additional Statutory Paternity Pay”.
 
If an employee falls pregnant from now onwards, or their partner does, they will have the benefit of these additional rights.

Additional Paternity Leave

Currently a new mother is entitled to six months' Ordinary Maternity Leave and six months' Additional Maternity Leave. An adoptive parent has the equivalent entitlement, but this can be taken by either adoptive parent. 
 
Under the new provisions, the Additional Maternity or Adoption leave, ie the latter six months of leave, may be transferred to the father/partner. 
 
To be eligible for Additional Paternity Leave (APL), the father, or partner, must satisfy the same conditions as for Ordinary Paternity Leave. Therefore they must:
  • Be continuously employed for a period of not less than 26 weeks as at the point of 15 weeks before the Child’s Expected Week of Arrival (EWC). In the case of adoptive parents, this will be 26 weeks ending with the week in which the child's adopter is notified of having been matched with an adoptive child.
  • Be the father of the child or be married to, the civil partner of, or the partner of, the child's mother.
  • Have, or expect to have, responsibility for the child’s upbringing.
In addition, the mother or partner must have returned to work, and the earliest date which APL can begin is 20 weeks after the child’s birth (or placement if the child is adopted). 
 
Fathers will have a choice as to the amount of APL they wish to take, and there is a degree of flexibility in how it is taken. It can be taken in a single block or in units of not less than two weeks providing that it is taken no later than the child’s first birthday. The father, or partner, will also be required to give his employer eight weeks' notice of intention to take APL. 


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