Documents for Business

In excess of 1,000 customisable documents covering every conceivable business issue.

Introduction to this document

Notice of birth for paternity leave

As well as giving notice to request paternity leave, employees must give a further notice confirming the date on which the child was born or placed for adoption. Use our notice to make it easy for them to do this.

Notice of paternity leave

Your employee must inform you that they wish to take paternity leave no later than the end of the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth (EWC), or no later than seven days after the date on which the adopter is notified of being matched with the child (or as soon as is reasonably practicable, where it wasn’t reasonably practicable for them to give the notice on time). They must tell you: (1) the EWC or the date on which the child is expected to be placed for adoption; (2) whether they wish to take one or two weeks off; (3) the date on which they want their period of paternity leave to begin; and (4) in adoption cases, the date on which the adopter was notified of having been matched with the child. You can request that they give this notice in writing - see our Paternity Leave Request Form.

Notice of birth/adoption

However, that’s not the end of it. Your employee must subsequently give you a further notice, as soon as is reasonably practicable after the child’s birth or placement for adoption, confirming the date on which the child was actually born or placed for adoption. You can again request this notice to be given in writing. This is where our Notice of Birth for Paternity Leave comes in. It provides a simple way of ensuring your employee gives you the required information. They just need to insert a date in whichever of the two boxes is applicable (there’s one for birth and one for adoption) and then add their name, signature and date. We’ve also made it clear that it’s a disciplinary offence to provide false information in the notice.