WFM UK | Payroll UK: Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave & Pay Functionality

A Note from Fourth: We recognise that parental bereavement is an incredibly sensitive and deeply painful subject. While this article focuses on the technical and legislative aspects of the entitlement, any formality or detachment in the language used is purely for clarity and accuracy. It in no way reflects a lack of empathy or compassion for those affected by such a loss.

Overview

From 6 April 2020, under “Jack’s Law”, the UK introduced a new statutory entitlement, via The Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018, to provide support for parents coping with the devastating loss of a child. The legislation grants eligible employees up to two weeks of Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave (SPBL), with qualifying individuals also entitled to Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (SPBP).

New functionality, introduced in March 2020, supports the calculation, recording, and payment of SPBPL&P within the Payroll module, ensuring full compliance with statutory requirements.

Entitlement & Eligibility Summary

• Eligible employees: Parents, adopters, partners, or those with day-to-day care responsibility for at least 4 weeks before the child’s passing. Full entitlement applies per child
• Leave entitlement: Up to 2 weeks’ Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave (SPBL) per child, with leave having to be taken within 56 weeks of the child’s passing or stillbirth. Leave can be taken as one 2-week block or two separate 1-week blocks. Leave cannot overlap with other statutory payments, but can follow if within the 56-week window
• Pay entitlement: Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (SPBP) available to employees with 26 weeks’ service and average weekly earnings above the Lower Earnings Limit. It is paid at the lower of the statutory weekly rate or 90% of average weekly earnings

User Guide

To operate Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave & Pay for employees, 

• Go to Payroll > Employees > Employee List > search for and select the Employee
• Use the employee side menu and go to Payroll > Employee Payroll Info > Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave

The 'Statutory Parental Bereavement Details' page will display, showing a summary of the employee's SPBL records.

• Select Add SPBL Record to add a new Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave record

This will display the page to add the details regarding the employee's bereavement and the fields to complete.

• Relationship: Enter a Relationship status with the child (Parent, Adopter, etc)
• Still Birth at 24 Weeks or Later?: If the passing of the child occurred after 24 weeks of pregnancy but before the child was born (stillbirth), then select Still Birth at 24 Weeks or Later?. If the passing of the child occurred after the birth, then leave this unselected
• Northern Ireland Location: This pertains to legislation effective from 6 April 2026, and attempting to create a record with this enabled will result in an error. This includes the Miscarriage Prior to 24 Weeks field that becomes available. Please see the appendix
• Date of Birth / Due Date of Child: Enter the Date of Birth of the child, or Due Date of Child (if stillbirth)
  • Note: For Bereavements on or after 6 April 2026, if Miscarriage Prior to 24 Weeks is selected, this field becomes non-mandatory
• Child's Name: If appropriate, enter the child's name. This is a non-mandatory field
• Date of Bereavement: Enter the date of the child's passing
• Date Notified: Enter the date that the employee let the employer know
• Total Number of Leave Weeks Available: A read-only field that states the number of weeks the employee has remaining to take
• Evidence Seen: Tick this box if the employee has provided the necessary evidence
  • Note: For Leave, employees are only required to provide the Date of Bereavement and dates/duration of the leave they wish to take. For pay, employees will also need to supply their relationship to the child. There is no legal requirement for employees to provide supporting or medical evidence, and employers should not request it
• Number of Weeks Paid: This will automatically update for each week that is taken and Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay paid.
• Employee Excluded: This will automatically update, flagging as Yes if the employee is not eligible for Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay. It will flag as No if they are eligible
• Stop Date: Enter a stop date if the employee returns from their leave before it ends
• Stop Date Reason: Enter a reason for the stop date entered above
• Select Apply or Save
  • Apply will keep the user within the employee's SPBL record, and Save will take them back to the page shown in Fig.2

Once saved (or applied), the information above will be retained, but the page will also show qualifying criteria:

• Qualifying Period is the timeframe in which the leave must be taken (56 weeks following the date of bereavement)
• Relevant Period of Earnings is the period 8 weeks before the Saturday, before the week in which the date of bereavement falls
• Calculated Average Earnings is the weekly average of the total earnings within the Relevant period of earnings 

Override Earnings

In the event the average earnings do not calculate correctly, or at all, potentially due to missing payroll data following switching Payroll Software Providers to Fourth or an Alabaster recalculation, then the 'Override Earnings' function is available.

• Navigate back to the employee's Statutory Parental Bereavement Record, and at the top of the page, select Override Earnings

• Enter the new value in the Average Earnings Override field, and select a Average Earnings Override Reason (TUPE Contract, New Business Client, Bureau Approved or Alabaster)#
• To confirm the change, select Save 

If now above the Lower Earnings Limit, and the employee was not eligible before due to earnings, they will now be eligible for SPBP.

View Entitlement

If the reason why an employee is not eligible for Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay is not clear, then users can select View Entitlement.

• This can be found by navigating back to the employees Statutory Parental Bereavement Record, and at the top of the page select View Entitlement

This will open as a pop-up window. If the employee is eligible, then the pop-up will not contain any information.

However, if the employee is excluded, then the Exclude from SPBP? tick box will be automatically ticked based on the immediate assessment completed upon creating the Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave record with details at the top of the pop-up (see Fig.9).

• To override the exclusion (if required), tick Override Exclusion?, select an Override Reason, and then Save

Booking Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave

As per the legislation, employees are entitled to two weeks' bereavement leave. This can only be booked in one two-week block, or two separate one-week blocks, noting that this cannot overlap with any other kind of statutory leave (also including absence days due to sickness or annual leave).

• Booking leave for an employee can be done by navigating back to the employee's Statutory Parental Bereavement Record, and at the top of the page, select Add Leave

The page will state the total leave remaining and the number of booked weeks.

• Enter a Notification Date, Start Date and End Date for the Bereavement Leave, then Re-calculate

• Once recalculated, the No. of Weeks will update, and when acceptable, select Save

The booked leave will then be displayed.

• To add further leave from this page (as well as the previously mentioned page), select Add Leave again

• Follow the above procedure again to add a second week

• To return to the booked leave page, without actually booking leave, navigate back to the employee's Statutory Parental Bereavement Record, and at the top of the page, select View Booked Leave#

Statutory Parental Bereavement Record History

Changes made to an employee's Statutory Parental Bereavement record are audited, and any changes made can be reviewed by looking at the record's history.

• To do this, navigate back to the employee's Statutory Parental Bereavement Record, and at the top of the page, select History

This will open as a pop-up, and each change in the record will be displayed with the old and new values, as well as the timestamp of that change - see Fig.17.

Statutory Parental Bereavement Payments

The payments for Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay operate the same way and pay the same amount as other Statutory Parental. These payments can be seen in the employee payroll summary (and thus payslips).

Real-Time Information & HMRC

Note: Further data items will be added to the FPS & EPS for Northern Ireland updates to Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave & Pay.

Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay Year-To-Date (SPBYTD) is supplied to HMRC every pay period via the Full Payment Submission (FPS) automatically.

• SPBPYTD - FPS - Data Item 212

As of the 2025-2026 Tax Year, Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay is reclaimable at 92% (or 108.5% for Small Employers - 100% Reclaim + 8.5% NIC Compensation) and is submitted via the Employment Payment Summary (EPS):

• SPBPRecovered - EPS - Data Item 206
• NICCompensationOnSPBP - EPS - Data Item 207

This information can be found in the 'View P32' page.

• Go to Payroll > Administration > Company Setup > select Company > Page Links: View P32 Details

Appendix

Changes to Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave & Pay for Employees in Northern Ireland.

A message from HMRC:

The Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018 was introduced to support and manage grief in the workplace following the loss of a child. This policy, along with the regulations, was introduced for implementation in April 2020 in England, Scotland, and Wales. As the Northern Ireland (NI) Assembly was suspended between January 2017 and January 2020, this policy could not be adopted by NI in parallel with Great Britain. Following the NI Assembly’s return, NI introduced Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave/Pay (SPBL/P) through the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022. This Act provided for a two-phased implementation. The first phase mirrored the GB provisions for SPBP/L and was brought into effect in April 2022. The second phase introduced changes to the eligibility criteria that will apply only in NI, and so required a longer implementation period.

These changes are:

• Access to parental bereavement pay as a Day 1 right in the cases of stillbirth and child death, thereby removing the 26-week continuous employment criteria, which will continue to apply in Great Britain
• Inclusion of miscarriage (up to 24 weeks) as part of the bereavement provision (also available from the first day of employment)
• The miscarriage element of the bereavement payment and the Day 1 right for parental bereavement payments only applies to claimants gainfully employed in Northern Ireland and on whose behalf an employer makes Class 1 National Insurance Contributions
• Payments made under the distinct elements of the NI entitlement for miscarriage payments in NI and the Day 1 right for parental bereavement payments to be reported and accounted for separately

This article will be updated in full when the new legislation comes into force (Bereavements from 6 April 2026).

Attempting to create a Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave & Pay record with the Northern Ireland Location flag enabled, before 6 April 2026, will result in the following error: