Journey Step 6 of 8

Step 6 of 8

Decision point 2. The hard part of SPL eligibility is not your employee — it is their partner. SPL requires the partner to meet an employment-and-earnings test in the 66 weeks before the expected birth or matching date. You cannot verify that yourself; you have to design a process that gets the employee to declare it accurately and produce evidence on request.

A workable design uses a single SPL eligibility form covering both parents, signed declarations under the regulations, and a checkpoint where HR confirms the partner test before approving any SPL block. Skipping this exposes you to overpaid ShPP you cannot recover from HMRC and undermines any later dispute.

HMRC will not refund overpaid ShPP where you took eligibility on trust without the regulation-compliant declaration. The form is your audit trail.