Insufficient notice of paternity leave

If an employee fails to provide sufficient notice to you of their intended period of paternity leave, they may not be able to take it on that occasion.

Notice requirements

The Paternity and Adoption Leave Regulations 2002 now stipulate that an employee must give you 28 days’ prior notice of each period of paternity leave (birth cases), or notice of each period of paternity leave which is given no later than seven days after the date on which the adopter was notified by the adoption agency of being matched with the child for adoption (adoption cases), or in either case they must give notice as soon as is reasonably practicable where it was “not reasonably practicable” for them to give notice on time. That notice must be in writing if you so request and it must specify the start date of the period of paternity leave requested and its duration. Within the same time limit, the employee must also give you a written declaration that the purpose of their paternity leave is to care for the child or support the child’s mother/adopter. We’ve enabled the employee to provide all this information through our Paternity Leave Request Form. However, they still need to submit that form to you within the relevant time limit.

Not reasonably practicable

There’s no explanation in the legislation of what is not reasonably practicable, so realistically you’re looking for significant extenuating circumstances to justify why the employee was unable to comply with the time limit, e.g. the pregnancy was discovered really late.

Non-compliance

If the employee fails to comply with the time limit and there are no circumstances that made meeting it not reasonably practicable, you should inform them that they now can’t take paternity leave on that occasion and the reason why, and this is the purpose of our Insufficient Notice of Paternity Leave letter. Do though be willing to explore alternative options with the employee. Our letter suggests the options of the employee taking paid annual leave or giving sufficient notice to take their period of paternity leave at an alternative, later time (which will mainly apply in birth cases).