WICL have produced the following anonymous survey in order to assess the proportion of its members who have opted to take Shared Parental Leave (“SPL”) since the relevant provisions came into force on 1 December 2014, applying to babies born or adopted on or after 5 April 2015. We also welcome the views of those members for whom SPL was not (or has not yet been) available.

Under the current regime, 50 weeks' SPL can be shared between eligible parents as desired, in addition to two weeks' compulsory maternity leave. It does not impact upon eligibility for statutory maternity, paternity or adoption leave but must be taken as an alternative. 

We understand that many different considerations will play into this very personal decision but the policy team are keen to gain a better understanding of the most important operative factors for women working in all capacities within criminal law. Using the data collected, we will focus on building policy which advocates equality between working parents in the family unit.

This survey does not examine the uptake of Statutory Shared Parental Pay, but we encourage any comments you may have about this parallel system in the comments section at the end.