Staff Handbook

your plans, and to enable the Company to consider how best to support your through the process. Booking Shared Parental Leave You must give notice to take SPL. In many cases, you will be able to give this notice at the same time as the notification of your entitlement to SPL (as set out above). In any case, you must give 8 weeks’ notice of each period of SPL. You have the right to submit three notifications specifying periods of SPL that you intend taking (or to vary or cancel a period of SPL that you have previously booked). SPL must be taken in complete weeks (starting on any day of the week). Each notification you submit may be for either a continuous period of SPL or two or more discontinuous periods of SPL. The Company will respond to your notifications in writing, within 14 days of receipt. Continuous Leave Notifications A notification may be for a period of continuous leave, which means a number of weeks taken in a single unbroken period of leave (e.g. six weeks in a row). You have the right to take a continuous block of leave notified in a single notification, as long as it does not exceed the total amount of SPL available to you and as long as you have given at least 8 weeks’ notice. Discontinuous Leave Notifications A single notification may also contain a request for two or more periods of discontinuous leave, which means a set number of weeks over a period of time, with breaks between them where you return to work (e.g. an arrangement where you take 6 weeks’ SPL spread over a 12 week period, with you working every other week). The Company has the right to refuse any notification for discontinuous leave. If it is refused, you can withdraw it within 15 days of giving it without it counting as one of your three permitted notifications, or you can opt to take the leave instead in a single continuous block. You will have until the 19 th day from the date of the original notification to choose when the single block of leave will commence (provided that is not sooner than 8 weeks from the original notification), otherwise it will commence on the first leave date previously advised in your original notification. As there is no guarantee that you will be permitted to take discontinuous leave, and as it could use up one of your three permitted notifications, you are encouraged to discuss your plans informally first, as set out above (under “Discussing SPL Plans”).

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