SPL – Shared Parental Leave – (introduced in the Children and Families Act 2014) aimed to increase the numbers of fathers able to take leave after childbirth.
Less complex and available to more fathers/second parents than Additional Paternity Leave (APL), but still complicated. Take up rates were not much higher than for APL, at around 2% of eligible fathers. However the option for both parents to take leave at the same time and for leave to be taken in several blocks at different times during the first year of the child’s life were both potentially helpful developments for couples who wished the father or second parent to take a more active and equal role in parenting.