Your employee may be entitled to Statutory Paternity Pay (SPP) if their spouse or partner gives birth to a child. This replaces their normal earnings and helps them take time off to care for the child.
As their employer, whether you have to pay them SPP depends on how long they have worked for you, how much they earn and the date of the baby's birth. They will also have to provide you with documentary evidence at least 28 days before they wish their SPP payments to start.
Payments of SPP count as earnings. You must deduct tax and National Insurance Contributions (NICs) from them in the usual way.
You'll normally be able to recover some or all of the SPP you pay.
SPP following the birth of a child is available to an employee who is:
and who is taking time off to support the mother or care for the baby.
To qualify for SPP, the employee must have:
The calculation of the average weekly earnings is very important because it not only determines if the employee qualifies for SPP but also how much they qualify for. To qualify for SPP, an employee must have average weekly earnings of at least the NIC LEL amount, £120.00 for 2020/21, in the relevant period up to the Qualifying Week.
For the tax year 2020/21, SPP is paid for one or two consecutive whole weeks at the lower of £151.20 per week or 90% of the employee's average weekly earnings.
All employers are entitled to recover 92% of SPP they pay, however if the employer qualifies for Small Employers Relief, where the total NIC in the qualifying tax year was under £45,000, they can recover 100% of SPP paid plus an additional 3% in compensation for the employer’s share of NIC due on these payments.
Should you qualify for Small Employer's Relief, ensure the box is ticked within Employer > Edit Employer Details > Registration Details:
To access this utility, simply click 'Payroll' and select the employee’s name on the left:
Leave Dates
Average Weekly Earnings
Within the Average Weekly Earnings section, BrightPay will now offer you three ways of establishing the employee’s average weekly earnings for the purpose of calculating SPP due.
Notes
Use the Notes section to enter any relevant notes relating to the employee's parenting leave.
Click 'Save' when the parenting leave details are completed. The program will automatically update the calendar accordingly and apply the SPP due.
Should an employee wish to extend or reduce the length of their ordinary paternity leave, the length of leave already entered for the employee can be edited as follows:
No SPP is payable for any week in which an employee works during their paternity leave period.
To record Return To Work Days in BrightPay:
1. Under Employees, select the employee from the listing and click their Calendar tab.
2. On the Calendar, select the date of the Return To Work day and click 'Return To Work Day' on the right hand side
3. Repeat if further Return To Work Days are taken
If a Return To Work day is recorded on the employee's calendar, BrightPay will notify you in the relevant pay period that the employee is not entitled to any SPP having returned to work for one or more days.
BrightPay uses the full statutory week method when calculating & applying SPP (Birth).
Example:
Paternity Leave begins on a Wednesday. Therefore the last day of the SPP week will be a Tuesday.
SPP will thus begin in the pay period in which the first Tuesday of the paternity leave falls.
In the event that an employee is not entitled to SPP, employers are to use form SPP1 to tell the employee the reason why.
Form SPP1 can be completed in BrightPay and subsequently printed or exported to PDF for emailing.
To complete form SPP1:
a) Within Employees, select the employee in question from the left hand listing
b) Click 'More' on the employee's menu bar, followed by 'SPP1...'
c) Complete the SPP1 form accordingly
d) Click Print/ Preview to view the completed form
e) Click Print, Email or Export PDF, as required.
Need help? Support is available at 0345 9390019 or [email protected].