Maternity and paternity rights.
Three changes to maternity and paternity leave rights came into force in April 2011:
- Fathers of children (or partners of the child’s mother) with an expected week of birth beginning on or after April 3, 2011 can take up any additional outstanding maternity leave as paternity leave, provided the mother has returned to work before using up her full entitlement to maternity leave after taking the first 20 weeks.
- On April 1, 2012 statutory maternity, paternity and adoption pay increase from £128.73 to £135.45 a week.
- Leave is protected and fathers have the right to return to their original jobs after any paternity leave they have chosen to take.
What you need to do about changes in paternity and maternity leave
When an employee provides a written request to share any aspect of his/her partner’s maternity leave, you should ask them to self-certify that they are entitled to take this. For more information see our Maternity, Paternity and Adoption Leave Factsheet. You should also check your employee has 26 weeks’ continuous employment with you before the baby’s birth to be entitled to request additional paternity leave.
What we think about paternity and maternity leave
It will be interesting to see how many fathers exercise their right to take the leave. A recent survey found that on average just 2.7% of employees had used their right to take two weeks’ statutory paternity leave in the past two years. And even in organisations where paternity pay is higher than the statutory minimum, there was no correlating increase in uptake.
Maternity pay is still very low (£135.45 a week from April 2012) and unlikely to be attractive to most fathers. Particularly as the final 13 weeks are unpaid. However, it could be appealing to the one-third of families where the woman earns the same as, or more than, her partner. And anticipated changes could see take-up wider than that. For instance, the government is consulting on plans for what it calls a ‘proper’ system of shared parental leave to be introduced in 2015. And pressure from Europe may increase maternity pay to bring all EU countries into a more advantageous rate for families.
Steve helped us when we had a lot of change going on in the organisation. He was able to creatively bring two disparate groups together and helped us to work as one larger team. He is personable and understands his audience well. A great trainer and facilitator.
