Commentary on Sections Part 2: Shared Rights to Leave and Pay Section 167ZX: Extent of entitlement and when payable: adoption
Subsection (1) provides for the Department to make regulations to determine the extent of a person’s entitlement to statutory shared parental pay in respect of a child, and when it is to be paid.
Under subsections (2) and (3), the extent of a person’s entitlement to statutory shared parental pay cannot exceed the length of the adoption pay period (currently 39 weeks) less the number of weeks that adoption pay is payable until the claimant’s return to work or the number of weeks by which the adoption pay period has been reduced (where the claimant reduces these periods before returning to work). Subsection (3) defines the meaning of “relevant week”.
Subsection (5) is to ensure that when two people are entitled to statutory shared parental pay in respect of the same child, the total number of weeks taken by both cannot exceed the number of weeks calculated under subsection (2).
Subsection (6) is to ensure that payments of statutory shared parental pay cannot be made to a person after a prescribed period. Subsection (7) secures that no payment of statutory shared parental pay may be made before the end of a person’s adoption pay period.
Subsection (8) allows for provision enabling a person who is entitled to statutory shared parental pay to vary the period(s) during which that person intends to claim the pay without varying the overall amount the person intends to take, provided certain conditions are satisfied. These conditions are specified in subsection (9). They require the intending claimant to give notice of intention to vary to the person who will be liable to make the payment. The notice must satisfy certain prescribed conditions as to time, form and content.
Subsection (10) makes clear that regulations may provide for a person who is entitled to statutory shared parental pay to vary the number of weeks for which he or she intends to claim. In order to do so he or she must, in accordance with subsection (11), notify the person liable to make the payment of the extent to which he or she and another person have used pay entitlement to date and the extent to which both individuals plan to use it in future. The consent of the other person must be obtained and the notice must adhere to certain conditions as to timing, form and content.
Subsection (12) specifies that if a person adopts more than one child as part of the same arrangement, he or she will not be entitled to take any more shared parental pay than that to which he or she would have been entitled if only one child was adopted.