Ordinary Statutory Paternity Pay

Your Sage Payroll system does NOT calculate an employee's qualification for Ordinary Statutory Paternity Pay when adopting a child from abroad. You must manually enter the relevant data using HM Revenue & Customs guidance.

The Ordinary Statutory Paternity Pay (OSPP) rules and rates are updated as part of your Payroll Upgrade if you select to load the SMP parameter table when prompted.

You can also apply the new rates and default rules manually using the OSPP Parameter Entry option:

  • BEFORE April 2011– use the Rates applicable from fields and set the future date as 03/04/11.
  • AFTER completing your Payroll 2011-12 Upgrade – change the figures in the Present SPP rates fields.

Click on the following links for further information:

Summary of Changes for 2011-12

Additional Statutory Paternity Pay

Additional Statutory Paternity Pay (ASPP) was introduced for qualifying employees for babies due to be born on or after 3 April 2011 and for children matched for adoption on or after 3 April 2011 when

  • their spouse or partner has had a baby
  • they and their spouse or they and their partner are jointly adopting a child

Couples in Northern Ireland need to be married in order to jointly adopt a child.

ASPP is an additional payment given to eligible fathers, partners, civil partners of mothers and adopters where there is entitlement to Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP), Maternity Allowance (MA) or Statutory Adoption Pay (SAP). This is to take time off work to care for their child.

The earliest start date for ASPP is 20 weeks after the child’s birth or the date the child was placed with an adopter and there must be at least two weeks SMP, MA or SAP still remaining. The mother or adopter must have returned to work before payment starts.

ASPP is payable for the remainder of the SMP, MA or SAP pay period, but payment cannot continue beyond the end of the pay period.

OSPP Rates and Rules

Ordinary Statutory Paternity Pay (OSPP) rates have been increased from 3 April 2011. The weekly rate of OSPP has been increased to the lower of £128.73 or 90% of the employee’s average weekly earnings (AWE). To be paid OSPP an employee’s AWE must be at least equivalent to the LEL which applies at the end of the qualifying week (QW):

  • £97.00 if:
    • their baby is due on or before 16 July 2011, or if
    • they are notified that they have been matched with a child on or before 3 April 2011.
  • £102.00 if:
    • the baby is due on or after 17 July 2011, or if
    • they are notified that they have been matched with a child on or after 4 April 2011.

Your OSPP Parameters should be as follows when you have successfully advanced your payroll(s) to the 2011-12 tax year. You are advised to check these figures against those published by HM Revenue & Customs:

OSPP Rates Applicable From 03/04/11
Rate % 90%  
Rate Amount 128.73  
Lower Earnings Limit 102.00  
OSPP Rules
Maximum number of weeks in OSPP leave 2  
Maximum number of weeks in OSPP period 8  
Qualifying week number 15  
Earliest week before EWC for still birth 16  
Minimum employment period before QW/MW 25 * * This field enables you to define the minimum employment period before the matching week (MW) to qualify for OSPP.

If a salary sacrifice arrangement is in place during the set period for an employee who is on paternity leave, or is about to start paternity leave, you must ensure that their OSPP is calculated on their gross earnings, i.e. earnings that are subject to Class 1 National Insurance contributions (NICs). Under that arrangement their average weekly earnings (AWE) are calculated using the amount of earnings actually paid to them during the set period, therefore their OSPP will be based on their reduced salary. You should note also that where a salary sacrifice arrangement lowers an employee’s AWE to below the Lower Earnings Limit for National Insurance they are not entitled to OSPP.

Change in the additional payment made to small employers
From 6 April 2011 employers who qualify for the small employers rate of reimbursement, can recover 100 per cent of the SMP, OSPP, ASPP and SAP paid to their employees, plus an additional amount of 3 per cent (currently this is 4.5 per cent) in compensation for the employers share of National Insurance Contributions (NICs) due on these payments. This means that small employer's can claim back a total of 103% of the SMP, OSPP, ASPP and SAP they pay out.

Employers who do not qualify for the small employers' rate can recover 92 per cent of the SMP, OSPP, ASPP and SAP paid to their employees.

Summary of Recent Changes to SPP

Recent changes to SPP can be summarised as follows:

  • Since March 2008:
    • For those employees that qualify for Paternity Pay and paternity leave in respect of a newborn child, a change was made, which takes day 1 of the 56 day count for taking paternity pay and leave as the day after the date of birth of the child or the Sunday of the week the baby is due – previously day 1 of the 56 day count was taken as the actual date of birth of the child or the Sunday of the EWC (Expected Week of Confinement). The start and end dates of an employees' Paternity Pay Period (PPP) can be added via the Start and End of PPP fields in the SPP option Employee Data Entry (Birth).
  • Since 1 April 2007:
    • Split-week payments are permissible to allow a weekly payment of SPP to be split over two wage/salary payments. This enables employers to align SPP payments with normal wage or salary payments, for example, for a seven day week with 2 days in one payroll period and 5 in the next payroll period the SPP can be split into two payments of 2 days and 5 days respectively.
  • 1 October 2006 – Employment Equality (Age) Regulations introduced:
    • The lower age limit of 16 on entitlement to Statutory Paternity Pay was removed.