BPPL: Contractual issues
Contents
Terms and conditions
An employee's contract of employment continues throughout their bereaved partner's paternity leave (BPPL) unless either you or the employee specifically end it, or it expires.
During leave, an employee has a statutory right to continue to benefit from all the terms and conditions of employment that would have applied to them had they been at work.
The only exception is for the terms relating to wages or salary (but they must still be paid for KIT days).
Examples of contractual terms and conditions that continue during BPPL include:
- Gym membership
- Participation in share schemes
- Reimbursement of professional subscriptions
- The use of a company car or mobile phone (unless provided for business use only)
Continuous employment
BPPL counts towards an employee's period of continuous employment for the purposes of entitlement to other statutory employment rights (e.g. the right to a redundancy payment) or any contractual rights (e.g. benefits that depend on length of service).
Accrual of annual leave
An employee continues to accumulate statutory - and any contractual - annual leave entitlement throughout BPPL.
An employee can't take annual leave during BPPL - but can take it immediately before or after it. They can carry over any untaken leave into the next holiday year, but it must be used by the end of that holiday year.
Contributions to a workplace pension scheme
An employer and employee must maintain their contribution to the employee's pension during BPPL if the pension scheme rules require them to do so, or if it's an obligation in the employee's contract.
If there's no such requirement, they may still make voluntary contributions if the pension scheme rules allow them to do so.