Paternity leave question....

jeannieblue

Teacher2301 wrote: »

I thought it's down to the employer and employee to decide which days are elected as paternity leave. Your colleague should speak to his manager and explain the situation and not elect to take these days (which they shouldn't count as they are public holidays anyway) - Some employers only pay for first week and not for the second, others are more generous. However, if you work in a big compnay, they should honour full pay shouldn't they?

Little company, honour nothing!

He has two other young ones and his wife will need his support for two weeks, and he intended to take it all in one go - as this is when it will be needed - Easter will fall in the middle. He's not after anything he is not entitled to.

He is under the impression that the law says he will be paid for two weeks or 10 days - which sort of means two weeks! Didn't the law change last year? Can't remember....

CarolynH

Teacher2301 wrote: »

I thought it's down to the employer and employee to decide which days are elected as paternity leave.

No, sorry, not quite. The employee and employer can agree when the days will be, and how long, but the employee can't pick and choose. SPP HAS to be taken in 1 block, if they return to work, even for 1 day, this will invalidate the rest of the period.

Genie, the law changed last year for Statutory MATERNITY pay (extending the MPP from 26 to 39 weeks). No chage for dads though.

I feel mean again now. :mad:

CarolynH

Teacher2301 wrote: »

I thought it's down to the employer and employee to decide which days are elected as paternity leave.

They're breaking the law then. If an employee is entitled to SPP, they are entitled to two weeks!

Contractual paterninit pay (ie over and above the statutory payment) could possibly only be paid for the first week. But if the employee met all the SPP criteria, they'd still be entitled to the 2nd week at SPP.

jeannieblue

Thought Paternity leave was changing around the same time as minimum holiday entitlement...

I've got to go to bed now - get up for work etc.

For extra info - he's been with company 11 years and had one day off sick in that time. (We don't get paid sick leave anyway!!!)

Thanks Carolyn and Teach for the help - Teach, I've not gone on to the links you provided yet as am cream crackered!

Will check back tomorrow night - he may be a new daddy by then!

chrisbur

Below from http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2002/ukpga_20020022_en_2

171ZG Relationship with contractual remuneration
(1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3) below, any entitlement to statutory paternity pay shall not affect any right of a person in relation to remuneration under any contract of service (“contractual remuneration”).
(2) Subject to subsection (3) below—
(a) any contractual remuneration paid to a person by an employer of his in respect of any period shall go towards discharging any liability of that employer to pay statutory paternity pay to him in respect of that period; and
(b) any statutory paternity pay paid by an employer to a person who is an employee of his in respect of any period shall go towards discharging any liability of that employer to pay contractual remuneration to him in respect of that period.
(3) Regulations may make provision as to payments which are, and those which are not, to be treated as contractual remuneration for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2) above.

I have underlined the section that I feel is relevent here. If a payment is made during an SPP week it counts towards paying the SPP for that week.

Two points
First do they know this? It is not your job to teach them how to do SPP.
Second remember that the Friday and Monday may fall in the same SPP week. For example if leave started on the Tuesday then the first week would be from Tuesday to Monday so both bank holidays would fall in that week and could be offset against one week's SPP but there would be no bank holidays to offset against the second week.