Paternity or Partner Leave Policy

These pages reproduce internal policy documents, which may change from time to time and which apply to UK employees only.

Where there is a difference between these pages and the policy documents on Confluence, the policy documents shall prevail.

Paternity or Partner Leave applies to fathers or partners (includes same-sex relationships) with someone who has given birth to a child or adopted a child, and the time off is to be used within the first year of the baby being born.

Enhanced Paternity leave and pay

iwoca offers enhanced paternity leave, which is 2 consecutive weeks of enhanced leave with 100% of usual pay (inclusive of

statutory paternity pay⁠

), regardless of your length of service.

In addition, if you have more than one year of service:

you can take an additional paid day off each week for 4 weeks after the child is born, pro-rated if you work part-time.

you can also take an additional paid day for every quarter beyond 1 year you have worked here for up to 5 years of length of service, pro-rated if you work part-time.

Summary of statutory legal rights

Statutory Paternity leave consists of two separate elements, known as ordinary paternity leave or enhanced paternity leave. Eligible employees have the right to:

take two weeks’ paternity leave – subject to the employee having a minimum of six months’ continuous service by the end of the ‘notification week’ (which is the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth or, in the case of adoption, the week in which the adopter was formally notified of the match with the child)

retain all their normal terms and conditions of employment throughout both ordinary and additional paternity leave, except pay continue to accrue holiday entitlement throughout paternity leave

receive statutory paternity pay, provided they earn at least the equivalent of the lower level for payment of National Insurance contributions

return to work after paternity leave, either to the same job or to an alternative job on terms and conditions that are no less favourable than the terms that would have applied had they not been absent.

Paternity leave is a right available in addition to parental leave

There are also duties and obligations on the employee’s part, such as to provide notice prior to taking paternity leave.

Ordinary paternity leave

You can choose to take either one week or two consecutive weeks’ ordinary paternity leave. This must be taken within 56 days of the date the child was due to be born (or within eight weeks of the actual date of birth, if it occurs earlier than expected). In the case of adoptions, ordinary paternity leave must be taken within 56 days of the date of the child’s placement. You are eligible to receive statutory paternity pay, provided you earn at least the equivalent of the lower level for payment of National Insurance contributions.

Notification of ordinary paternity leave

Written notice of your intention to take ordinary paternity leave must be provided to iwoca no later than:

(for births) the end of the 15th week before the week in which the baby is due

(for adoptions) seven days after the date on which notification was received from an adoption agency of the match with the child.

The notice should be in writing, and should state:

the week in which the child is expected to be born or placed for adoption

whether you wish to take one or two weeks’ ordinary paternity leave

when you want the period of leave to start

(in the case of an adopted child) the date on which notification of the match with the child was received.

Please note; in order to be eligible for statutory and enhanced leave and pay, you’ll need to comply with the notification procedures above.

You can change your mind about the date on which you start your ordinary paternity leave, provided you give the People Ops Team written notice at least 28 days in advance of either the revised start date or the original start date, whichever is the earlier.

Other things to note:

We understand that if there are delivery complications, fathers/partners may need additional time off in order to take care of the mother and child. If this is the case, employees can speak to their People Partners to make arrangements.

Where a couple adopts a child jointly, one of them may be eligible for adoption leave (the couple may choose which) and the other partner may be eligible for paternity leave.

Paternity leave can sometimes be available to female employees as well as males, for example, where a couple adopts a child jointly, they may decide that one partner will take adoption leave, in which case the other partner may be eligible for paternity leave. For the purposes of this part of the policy, however, the masculine gender is used for simplicity.

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