Families and pregnancy toolkit

Practical Law UK Toolkit 0-507-8989 (Approx. 16 pages)

Families and pregnancy toolkit

by Practical Law Employment

Pregnancy, maternity leave and pay

Practice notes and checklists

The rights and responsibilities of and towards pregnant employees, and the legal framework for taking ordinary maternity leave (OML) and additional maternity leave (AML) and receiving statutory maternity pay (SMP), are considered in Practice notes:

General

Pay, pensions and other benefits

Action points and timelines

Key points to consider with an employee before they are either about to start or return from maternity leave are set out in Checklists:

Policies

For workplace policies setting out arrangements for antenatal appointments, maternity leave and pay based on the statutory framework, plus optional paragraphs for company maternity pay, see Standard documents:

Letters and forms

For HMRC forms for employers and employees, see:

Statutory leave and pay forms (HMRC).

Notification of pregnancy

For standard letters for use when an employee needs to notify their employer that they are pregnant and intend to take maternity leave, and dealing with circumstances when maternity leave starts early, see Standard documents:

Health and safety

Employers have specific health and safety duties in relation to new or expectant mothers (see Practice note, Pregnancy and maternity: the legal framework: Pregnancy: Health and safety). For standard letters for use when undertaking risk assessments and dealing with the impact of the working environment on pregnant employees, see Standard documents:

Redundancy during or after pregnancy or maternity leave

For standard letters for use when an employee who is pregnant, or is on or has recently returned to work from maternity leave, is included in a redundancy exercise, see Standard documents:

Keeping in touch

For standard letters for use to ask an employee to attend a keeping-in-touch (KIT) day or to respond to an employee's request for a KIT day, see Standard documents:

Returning from maternity leave

For standard letters for use when an employee advises their employer of their intention to return early from maternity leave, see Standard documents:

Assisted conception

For an IVF and assisted conception policy addressing support available from an employer in the context of fertility issues, see Standard document, IVF and assisted conception policy.

Pregnancy and baby loss

For workplace policies addressing pregnancy and baby loss, see Standard documents:

Paternity leave and pay

Practice notes

General

For information on the statutory rights to paternity leave on the birth or adoption of a child, see Practice notes:

Paternity leave.
Time off: overview.

Pay and pensions

For information on statutory paternity pay following the birth or adoption of a child, and the pension rights of individuals on paternity leave, see Practice notes:

Policies

For workplace policies setting out arrangements for paternity leave and pay based on the statutory framework, plus optional paragraphs for company paternity pay, see Standard documents:

Letters and forms

For HMRC forms for employers and employees, see:

Statutory leave and pay forms (HMRC).

Paternity leave notifications

Birth. For standard letters for use when an employee gives notice of their intention to take paternity leave following the birth of a child, see Standard documents:

Adoption. For standard letters for use when an employee gives notice of their intention to take paternity leave following the adoption of a child, see Standard documents:

Adoption leave and pay

Practice notes

For information on the rights of employees to statutory adoption leave and pay when a child is placed with them for adoption, and information on pension rights during adoption leave, see Practice notes:

Policies

For workplace policies setting out arrangements for adoption leave and pay based on the statutory framework, plus optional paragraphs for company adoption pay, see Standard documents:

Letters and forms

Notifications

For standard letters for use when an employee gives notice of their intention to take adoption leave, see Standard documents:

For HMRC forms for employers and employees, see:

Statutory leave and pay forms (HMRC).

Keeping in touch

For standard letters for use to invite an employee to attend a keeping-in-touch (KIT) day or to respond to an employee's request for a KIT day, see Standard documents:

Redundancy during or after adoption leave

For standard letters for use when an employee who is on, or has recently returned to work from, adoption leave is included in a redundancy exercise, see Redundancy during or after pregnancy or maternity leave.

Shared parental leave and pay

For links to all our materials on shared parental leave and pay, including practice notes, standard documents, background materials on the public consultations, and further guidance from the government and Acas, see Shared parental leave and pay toolkit.

Parental leave

Parental leave is a form of statutory unpaid leave available to some working parents in addition to statutory maternity, paternity and adoption leave. Eligible employees can take up to 18 weeks' parental leave in respect of each child (for the purpose of caring for that child), and there is flexibility regarding how and when the leave can be taken.

Practice notes

The statutory scheme for unpaid parental leave scheme and its implications for workplace pensions are considered in Practice notes:

Policies

For workplace policies setting out arrangements for unpaid parental leave, see Standard documents:

Time off for dependants

Practice notes

The right for employees to reasonable unpaid time off work at to deal with unexpected situations affecting their dependants, such as a child falling ill, is considered in Practice notes:

Policy

For a workplace policy reflecting the statutory time off for dependants scheme, see Standard document, Time off for dependants policy.

Parental bereavement

A statutory right to one week or two weeks' statutory parental bereavement leave and pay was introduced on 6 April 2020.

Practice note

The statutory right to parental bereavement leave and pay is considered in Practice note, Parental bereavement leave and pay.

Policies

For policies addressing parental bereavement, see Standard documents:

Neonatal care leave

A statutory right to neonatal care leave and pay is due to be introduced in April 2025.

Practice note

The statutory right to neonatal care leave and pay is considered in Practice note, Neonatal care leave and pay.

Flexible working

Since 6 April 2024, all employees have been able to make a statutory request for flexible working for any reason. It is not a right reserved only to parents and carers. The following materials address the position. (Note that between 30 June 2014 and 6 April 2024, to make a request for flexible working under the statutory scheme, an employee had to have at least 26 weeks' continuous service.)

Practice notes and flowcharts

The right to request flexible working is considered in Practice note, Flexible working.

The procedure that an employer should follow on receipt of a statutory flexible working request, taking account of the recommendations made by the Acas Statutory Code of Practice, is set out in Flowchart: the procedure on statutory requests for flexible working.

Policies

For workplace policies reflecting the right to request flexible working, see Standard documents:

Letters and forms

For standard letters for use in relation to a flexible working request, see Standard documents:

Amending the contract

Flexible working requests may lead to changes to an employee's employment contract. For clauses which may be helpful in this situation, and which can be used with Standard document, Employment contract for a junior employee, see:

External resources

The following links are to external documents on statutory maternity, adoption and paternity pay.

The following HMRC helpbooks are old and may not be up to date. HMRC stopped producing them in PDF format after 2013 when it started putting its information on statutory leave and pay onto the GOV.UK site (see the links above). However, the helpbooks contain much more detail.

Families and pregnancy toolkit | Practical Law