Written evidence from British Retail Consortium (CFA0139)

HOUSE OF LORDS CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ACT 2014 SELECT COMMITTEE INQURY

In the past 12 months we have had only 6 colleagues that took up the shared parental leave (this is out of 12000 employees), so very low take up.

And below is a response from one HR team about their experience:

This is a benefit that is not taken often, and as a result we are not used to working with it and therefore it is more challenging.  The biggest issue is that it is quite confusing with a lot of forms to be completed, particularly if the parents both work in the same company. (entitlement notice, booking notice and Economic Activity Test)

The thing that confuses most people is the entitlement – so the Mother has to take min 2 weeks Maternity Leave, which leave a balance of 50 weeks left to take and this is split amongst both parents.  If the Mum takes  more Maternity leave, then this reduces the amount  that can be shared between them.

Really in a nutshell this shared parental leave policy is only advantageous for the Mother who wishes to come back to work early and not use up all of her maternity Leave.  It is also important to make sure the partner takes their Paternity Leave before they do Shared Parental Leave, as if they start parental leave they will lose their paternity leave entitlement.

Then the 37 weeks they may be entitled to take also confuses everyone.  The reason it is only 37 weeks is detailed below:

37 weeks paid- usually the mother has 39 weeks of paid maternity leave. As we already know, the mother has to take the legally required 2 weeks of maternity leave (which is paid), this leaves 37 weeks of paid leave which can then be shared between them as shared parental leave.

50 weeks is the total amount of leave they can take between them (for example, if the mother takes 27 weeks of maternity paid leave, the Father will have only have 10 weeks of shared parental leave) – they can of course take remaining 13 weeks as unpaid shared parental leave.

We promoted it in this month’s communications, but not really sure how else we can make it more attractive…  the policy when you read it is really quite complicated in particular the parts around the pay…

August 2022