New Paternity Rights From 6 April 2010

From 6 April 2010, eligible employees will have the right to take additional paternity leave and pay (APLP).

However, the right will only apply where:

• their partner is due to give birth on or after 3 April 2011
• they and/or the other adoptive parent receive notification on or after 3 April 2011 that they have been matched with a child for adoption

Additional paternity leave (APL) will allow an employee to take up to 26 weeks leave to care for the child.

The employee will only be able to start their APL:

• 20 or more weeks after the child’s birth or placement for adoption
• once their partner has returned to work from statutory maternity leave (SML) or statutory adoption leave (SAL) and/or ended their entitlement to statutory maternity or adoption pay, or maternity allowance

The employee’s ASPL will have to have ended by the end of the 52nd week after the child’s birth or placement for adoption.

The employee will only receive additional statutory paternity pay (ASPP) during the time their partner would have been receiving statutory maternity or adoption pay, or maternity allowance.

The eligibility criteria for APLP are the same as they are for ‘ordinary’ paternity leave.

However, there will be additional notification requirements for employees wishing to take APLP.

Eight weeks before they wish their APL to start, the employee must provide you with:

• notice of when they wish their leave to start
• a declaration stating that they are taking the leave to care for the child
• a declaration from the mother or other adoptive parent stating certain information

If they are also eligible for ASPP, the employee will also have to state when they expect their ASPP period to begin and end.

JCM/10/04/08

Tags: APL, APLP, ASPP, maternity, paternity, SAL, SML

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 8th, 2010 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Paternity Rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.