Adoption Leave, Pay and Employee Rights: What Employers Need to Know
National Adoption Week is an opportunity to celebrate adoptive families and for employes it’s a useful reminder to ensure you understand your legal responsibilities when an employee is adopting a child.
Adoption can be an exciting but demanding time, and knowing what leave, pay and support employees are entitled to can make the process considerably easier for everyone involved.
Adoption Leave
Eligible employees can take up to 52 weeks of Statutory Adoption Leave, made up of 26 weeks of Ordinary Adoption Leave followed by 26 weeks of Additional Adoption Leave.
Importantly, adoption leave is a day-one employment right. An employee does not need a minimum period of service to qualify for the leave, although separate eligibility requirements apply to Statutory Adoption Pay.
Where a couple is adopting together, only one person can take adoption leave. The other parent may instead be entitled to paternity leave and pay. Eligible parents may also have the option of using Shared Parental Leave.
What about pay?
Statutory Adoption Pay can be paid for up to 39 weeks.
For the first six weeks, eligible employees receive 90% of their average weekly earnings. For the following 33 weeks, they receive £194.32 per week or 90% of their average weekly earnings, whichever is lower.
Unlike adoption leave, Statutory Adoption Pay is not currently a day-one right. Among other requirements, an employee will generally need to have worked continuously for their employer for at least 26 weeks by the relevant qualifying point and meet the minimum earnings requirement.
Employers can also offer enhanced adoption pay above the statutory minimum.
Time Off For Appointments
Employers also need to be aware of employees' rights to attend adoption appointments.
The person taking adoption leave is entitled to paid time off for up to five adoption appointments after being matched with a child.
The other parent is entitled to unpaid time off for up to two adoption appointments.
Each appointment can last up to 6.5 hours, including travelling time.
Employment Rights During Adoption
Employees continue to benefit from important employment rights while on adoption leave. This includes continuing to accrue holiday and benefiting from pay rises.
There are also rules governing an employee's right to return to their job following adoption leave. Employees should not be dismissed or subjected to unfair treatment because they have taken, or intend to take, adoption leave.
Employers should also be aware of the additional redundancy protections applying to employees who take adoption leave.
Going The Extra Mile
Meeting the statutory obligations is the easy bit. Good support goes way beyond that.
Adoption can involve uncertainty throughout the process around dates, appointments and placement, so flexibility and understanding can make a real difference.
Your Adoption Policy
You don’t have to have an adoption policy by law, but it will make life a lot easier if you do. If it doesn’t exist already and you have an employee who is adopting a child, there is no better time to get that document in place.
Doing so will help you answer important questions about your and your managers’ understanding of what an employee is entitled to, whether you offer enhanced adoption pay and how you can support someone before, during and after their leave.
Your policy should also cover different routes to becoming a parent through adoptions, different rules apply to overseas adoption, fostering to adopt and surrogacy arrangements which you must be aware of and should cover in your policy.
Need help with an adoption policy or employee adopting a child? We’re here to support