Companies will need to adapt their benefits suite to include the UK’s new legal right to paid parental bereavement (opens a new window) leave but also allow for some flexibility in its application.
Working parents who suffer the devastating loss of a child under the age of 18, or suffer a stillbirth from 24 weeks of pregnancy, will be entitled (opens a new window)to 2 weeks’ statutory leave in the UK from April 6, 2020. This entitlement is irrespective of how long they have worked for their employer.
The new law gives parents the choice of taking the leave as either a single block of 2 weeks, or as 2 separate blocks of one week each taken at different times across the first year after their child’s death. This allows parents to match their leave according to their needs.
Bereavement Pay
Parents with at least 26 weeks’ continuous service with their employer and weekly average earnings over the lower earnings limit (£118 per week for 2019 to 2020) will also be entitled to Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (SPBP), paid at the statutory rate of £148.68 per week (for 2019 to 2020), or 90% of average weekly earnings where this is lower.
SPBP will be administered by employers in the same way as existing family-related statutory payments such as Statutory Paternity Pay. Small employers will therefore be able to recover all cost for statutory bereavement pay from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) while large organisations will be able to recover almost all of it.
The right to parental bereavement leave and pay makes the UK one of a very few countries worldwide to offer such support, and the first to offer a full 2 weeks, according to the government.
So far there has been no legal obligation for UK employers to provide paid time off for grieving parents. Under the Employment Rights Act 1996, employees currently have the legal right to take ‘reasonable’ time off to deal with an emergency such as the death of a child, but this entitlement is only to unpaid leave and does not necessarily allow for a longer time off to grieve.
The new regulation is also expected to apply to adults with “parental responsibility” including adopters, foster parents and guardians or “kinship carers” such as close relatives or family friends who have assumed responsibility for looking after a child in the absence of parents.
In case of a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy, female employees will still be entitled to up to 52 weeks of maternity leave and/or pay, similar to a mother who loses a child after it is born.
Flexible Application
HR departments will need to add the new Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave policy to their suite of current family leave policies, but they may want to take a flexible approach in some areas.
For example, considering how devastating such a loss can be for a parent, companies may want to add a discretionary higher amount to the statutory minimum pay or offer the full entitlement even during the first 26 weeks of their employment.
Also, HR professionals may need to take into account that different religions have their own bereavement and funeral traditions which may require a flexible approach since the company could otherwise face accusations of religious discrimination.
The introduction of this new legislation provides an opportunity for employers to remind their employees of the support services they provide in terms of bereavement and wider mental health issues such as employee assistance programmes, bereavement counselling (included in Group Life cover) , access to Mental Health First Aiders and other services.
For further information, please contact:
Chris Rofe, Senior Vice President, Employee Benefits
Tel:+ 44 (0)20 7933 2876 | Email: chris.rofe@uk.lockton.com (opens a new window)
