What to do if your employer refuses you Shared Parental Leave and Pay

Shared Parental Leave allows parents greater flexibility in taking time off work to care for their child during the first year.

However, it is quite a technical scheme. It is common for both employees and employers alike to struggle to understand the rules and to get it wrong from time to time.

One of the most common queries we receive on our helpline is what to do when your employer refuses to give you Shared Parental Leave and/or Pay. This article covers what to do if you find yourself in this situation.

Shared Parental Leave

If you are refused Shared Parental Leave (SPL), the first thing you should do is double check whether you are eligible, and whether you have given the correct notice.

The eligibility rules are quite complicated, so it is a good idea to read through our page on eligibility and to check the government planner to confirm whether you are eligible to take SPL.

You should also check whether you have submitted the correct notices. Booking notice for SPL can be either:

• continuous where all leave is taken in one continuous block, or
• discontinuous, where leave is taken in a number of blocks while you return to work in between.

Provided you are eligible and you request a continuous block of leave in a booking notice, your employer must accept the request and allow you to take the leave. Like maternity and paternity leave, Shared Parental Leave is a statutory right.

The only circumstances where your employer has a right to refuse you leave is if:

• you are ineligible for SPL,
• you want to take SPL in a way not permitted by the scheme (e.g., you want to take it beyond your child’s first birthday), or
• you are submitting a single booking notice for a discontinuous period of leave (e.g., multiple blocks of leave in the same notice). In this situation, your employer may refuse your request but they still must allow you the leave.

Discontinuous blocks of leave in the same notice

Once you submit a booking notice with discontinuous blocks of leave, your employer has two weeks to either accept the request, propose alternatives or refuse the request. If after two weeks your employer has not refused the request or proposed alternative dates, you will be entitled to take the leave.

If your employer refuses the request, you may take the total amount of leave requested as a continuous period instead or withdraw your original notice. You have until 15 days after your original notice to withdraw the leave, or 19 days after the notice to choose a start date for your continuous period of leave.

Remember that you can only submit up to 3 booking notices. In practice, this means that you can book up to 3 separate blocks of leave and your employer cannot refuse your leave. Because of this, we ordinarily recommend that you submit notice for discontinuous periods of leave in separate booking notices, unless you know that your employer will agree to your request in the same notice.

Next steps if you think you are being wrongly denied leave

It is important to try to resolve any issues at work informally with your employer, for example, by speaking to your line manager, human resources or another senior manager. If you are in a union you could talk to your union representative.

The legal framework on SPL is complicated and therefore it may help to seek advice on what your rights and options are in your situation. We also recommend using tools such as the government SPL planner.

It is important that you ask your employer to explain their reasoning for refusing you SPL – often, it is due to misunderstandings on the statutory scheme or the interpretation of their policy.

If you believe your employer has wrongly turned you down, and you have already sought advice and are confident that you have the right to take SPL in the way you want, you can suggest that they reach out to an employer’s advice service such as ACAS. The government also has some helpful guidance for employers.

Keep in mind that you have the right not to be subjected to any unfair treatment by your employer because you have taken (or sought to take) SPL. For more information, see our page on employment protections while on Shared Parental Leave.

If the discussions with your employer do not resolve the issue, or if you think your employer has treated you unfairly and the relationship is breaking down, you can consider raising a grievance.

If the above steps do not resolve the matter, you could bring a claim in the employment tribunal. Please note that this is a drastic step, and you should be able to resolve the issue informally with your employer. Tribunal claims can be expensive and long, and there is no guarantee of success, so this step should be considered cautiously. It is best to try to resolve the issue with your employer.

Shared Parental Pay

If your employer is not going to give you Shared Parental Pay (ShPP), they should write to you explaining their decision. There are no official forms if your employer refuses to pay you Statutory Shared Parental Pay (ShPP).

If you don’t agree with your employer’s decision on a statutory payment, or your employer fails to inform you of a decision, you can ask HMRC to make a decision on your entitlement. To do so, you should contact the Statutory Payment Dispute Team.

For more information, see our article on what to do if my employer does not give me statutory pay?

This advice applies in England, Wales and Scotland. If you live in another part of the UK, the law may differ. If you are in Northern Ireland you can visit the Labour Relations Agency or call their helpline Workplace Information Service on 03300 555 300.

Our helpline and online contact form is now closed as we wind down our operations. Our free legal advice pages remain available and up to date until further notice. You can find a list of trusted organisations that may be able to help you below.