The Change

Shared Parental Leave is designed to give parents more flexibility in how to share the care of their child in the first year following birth or adoption. Parents will be able to share a pot of leave, and can decide to be off work at the same time and/or take it in turns to have periods of leave to look after the child.

Each eligible parent can give their employer up to 3 separate notices booking or varying leave, although it must be given at least eight weeks before the leave is due to start. Each notice can be for a block of leave, or the notice may be for a pattern of "discontinuous" leave involving different periods of leave.

Release Date: 30th April 2015
 

Reason for the Change

The changes were made due to new legislation which came into effect for babies due/adopted on or after 6th April 2015.
 

Customers Affected

This change affects all People System customers using the Payroll module and are a Fourth Bureau customer.
 

How Does This Affect Me?

This process will be managed by your Payroll Specialist in the Bureau in the same way they currently do for SMP. Please contact your Payroll Specialist if you have any employees wishing to join the scheme.
 

Release Notes

Summary of Changes

We have developed new screens and functionality to take into account the new legislation. Below is a summary of the main features of the new screens and functionality:

1. New screen to record the parent’s intention to book SPL with mandatory checks to ensure compliance.
2. New “SPL” absence type on the Rota module – this will function the same as for SMP
3. Ability to record and pay “Split Days” to a maximum of 20 days (SPL equivalent to KIT days for SMP)
4. New screen to book blocks of SPL and the ability to print the schedule.
5. Payments of SHPP to employees
6. The employer has the choice on whether SPL payments can be paid in full weeks, and for only the number of full weeks in the pay period, or whether they want to align SPL payments with the pay period, for employees who are paid monthly. 
7. There is a setting to allow this choice at pay basis level. This was delivered as part of the SMP Enhancements on 26th February 2015.
8. If this pay basis setting is already enabled on your portal for SMP payments, SHPP payments will also be aligned to your pay period dates

 

Screen Shots of Key Pages

     

Also See

• Release Note: Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) Changes [In-House Payroll] (if relevant).