Russell HR Consulting

 

As an expectant mother in the UK, you are given a number of antenatal and maternity rights to ensure that both you and your baby are healthy, rested and supported financially.

Currently the statutory rights given to new and expectant mothers differ enormously from those given to fathers, who are eligible to take a maximum of one or two consecutive weeks’ paternity leave…

 

… but this is set to undergo a dramatic change!

 

New regulations will come into force this April, giving new rights to the parents of babies due on or after 3rd April 2011. The right to take additional paternity leave will also apply to adoptive parents who are notified of having been matched with a child on or after that date. Those employees who qualify will have the right to take up to six months of leave to care for their new born, providing the child’s mother returns to work without exercising her full entitlement to maternity or adoption leave.

 

The Additional Paternity Leave Regulations 2010 allow for part of the additional paternity leave to be paid at the statutory rate (equal to the current rate of statutory maternity pay), based on the provision that the mother has not exhausted her entitlement already. The sum of the mother’s and father’s paid leave should not exceed the existing paid maternity leave period of 39 weeks. This allows both parents to spend time with their child and gives companies more freedom in terms of increased working hours of the parents.

 

A father’s eligibility for additional paternity leave depends on the following:

 

• He must have been employed by your company for at least 26 weeks when it reaches 15 weeks prior to the expected birth date.
• He must remain in employment until the date at which he intends to take the additional paternity leave.
• He is required to follow a notification procedure, at least eight weeks prior to the date on which he proposes to start his paternity leave. The notifications include:
  1. A leave notice specifying the expected week of birth and the chosen start and end date for the paternity leave period (in cases of adoption, the notice will detail when the child is expecting to be matched to the adopting employee.
  2. An employee declaration, written by the father and stating that the purpose for the period of leave will be to care for his new born child.
  3. A written declaration from the mother, setting out her name and address, the date the mother intends to return to work, her national insurance number, confirmation that the father satisfies the legal requirements and that he is, to the mother’s knowledge, the only person exercising additional paternity leave entitlement for that child. She should also indicate that she consent s to the employer processing such of her information as is contained in the declaration.

The employer may ask for verification at any time within a 28 day period after the leave notice has been given. If the father wishes to change the paternity leave arrangements, he is required to give at least six weeks’ notice. In certain circumstances, the employer may require him to take some of his paternity leave.

 

On returning to work after the additional paternity leave period, a father is entitled to the same return-to-work rights as a mother after returning from ordinary maternity leave.

 

There is a lot of information to take in, but the Government has promised guidance on these new paternal rights to ensure that both employers and employees have sufficient information about how these rights will operate in practice.

 

Note that the new right to 26 weeks’ leave is additional to the existing right.

 

If you are still a little confused, Russell HR Consulting provides expert knowledge in the practical application of employment law, from planning an employee’s paternity leave, to managing an employee’s return to work smoothly and efficiently. For more information, contact us on 0845 644 8955 or e-mail pm@russellhrconsulting.co.uk.

 

 

By Darry Khajehpour

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 10:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. 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.