Bereaved Partner Paternity Leave (BPPL)

Extended paternity leave available in the event of the mother or primary adopter's death

Summary

When a mother dies in the 52-week period following birth, Bereaved Partner Paternity Leave (BPPL) is available to the surviving parent to enable them to stay at home and care for the child. The same entitlement applies in cases of adoption where the primary adopter dies within the first year of adoption.

Note: if the parents both qualified for Shared Parental Leave (ShPL) and Shared Parental Pay (ShPP), fathers/partners retain their entitlement to ShPL after their partner’s death. This option should be explored before BPPL is considered, since BPPL carries no statutory pay element whereas statutory ShPP continues for 39 weeks, which may be a better option for the surviving parent, giving some statutory pay entitlement up to week 39. Full details of how ShPL and ShPP work when a parent dies is set out in the Employer Technical Guide.

BPPL is a statutory entitlement to unpaid leave. However, for eligible employees a period of full pay leave may be available, depending upon the date of bereavement and upon how much maternity or adoption leave the mother/primary adopter took before they died. Statutory paternity leave and Oxford University Additional Paternity Leave continue to be available as personal leave entitlements and may be used in combination with BPPL, but, when any combination of family leave types is used (with the exception of Neonatal care leave), the maximum total period of leave available to any employee is 52 weeks, and maximum total period of leave at the rate of full pay is 26 weeks. As there is no statutory pay entitlement, any BPPL in weeks 27-52 following the birth/placement is unpaid. Neonatal Care Leave is supplementary to all other family leave types, giving a longer period in which leave can be taken (68 weeks following birth/placement and up to an additional 12 weeks’ pay available).

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Up to 52 weeks of BPPL is available, starting from the date of birth/placement with the actual amount of leave available dependent upon when the bereavement occurs.   

Leave can only be taken in a single block.

The 52-week period begins on the day after the child’s birth or placement for adoption and ends 52 weeks after that date. All BPPL must be taken within this period

Although titled as a form of ‘paternity’ leave, in common with other similar schemes the leave is available to anyone who meets the eligibility criteria regardless of gender, sexual orientation, etc. 

To qualify the individual must:

  • Be an employee of the University (ie not a casual worker, etc); and
  • Be the father of the child, or have been married to, or the civil partner of the mother (or primary adopter) and have primary care responsibilities for the child after the bereavement; and
  • Be employed by the University on the date that their child was born or placed and remain employed for the full duration of any leave period that is requested; and
  • Intend to use the leave to care for the child.

This leave is separate to arrangements for compassionate/bereavement leave. If the parent needs time away from work due to the bereavement, rather than to care for the child, compassionate leave should be considered.  

 

  • Where the leave needs to begin within 8 weeks of the bereavement the employee should inform their department of their intention to take BPPL as soon as possible. This can be done orally or in writing
  • Where it is planned to use the leave more than 8 weeks after the bereavement, one week’s notice of intention to start a period of leave should be given.  That notification should set out the intended period of leave. 
  • It is recognised that when an urgent need to take leave arises the individual may not know immediately how much leave they will need to take.  Departments are advised to explain how much leave is available to them, and ask them to remain in regular contact about their plans.  If they are able to make firm plans about a future return to work date this is helpful, but the minimum period of notice to return to work is one week.
  • Evidence of the bereavement (for example, a death certificate) is not required – the declaration form available from the right hand side of this page is sufficient 

 

  • Payroll do not need to be advised as there is no statutory pay entitlement and therefore no statutory offset is claimed
  • The leave period start and end dates should be identified in People XD using the relevant BPPL code [see family leave user guides]
  • If a period of unpaid leave is to be taken, then departmental teams should reduce the pay to zero for the appropriate period.

Note: where pay is to be reduced to zero, ensure that the employee understands the need to give sufficient notice of their return to work date so that their pay rate can be returned to their normal rate in good time to meet payroll deadlines. This may mean giving longer than the statutory one week notice of return.

  • Throughout the period of leave all contractual terms and conditions (with the exception of remuneration) continue to apply, including accrual of paid annual leave.
  • In common with other family leave schemes, employees taking BPPL benefit from protections relating to return to work redundancy and, where the period of leave is longer than 6 continuous weeks, the provisions of the Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023 also apply.
  • Up to 10 ‘Keeping in Touch’ days may be worked during any period of BPPL.  During any leave taken at full pay rate there is no additional pay for work done on a KIT day.  If a KIT day is worked during an unpaid period of leave the employee should receive their usual daily rate of pay. Whilst work on a KIT day can be for fewer than full time hours (and are claimed in hours), any day on which work is done counts as a full day of KIT entitlement.

In the very sad circumstance that the child also dies, or the adoption falls through, a shorter period of leave (up to 8 weeks at the rate of full pay) is available.

Example 1

Birth: Mother and Father.  Father is our employee, mother is employed elsewhere.

Mother dies when child is 2 weeks old. 

The father had submitted plans to take:

  • Statutory Paternity leave from birth to week 2
  • OUAPPL from week 3 to week 12
  • Return to work weeks 13-25
  • Shared Parental Leave from weeks 26-39 (both parents meet eligibility)

As at the date the mother dies, the father has taken 2 weeks of statutory paternity leave (at full pay).

After the mother dies he changes his plans and takes:

  • Shared Parental Leave from weeks 3 to 39 (giving 26 weeks leave at full pay, including his 2 statutory paternity leave weeks and 13 weeks at statutory pay rate)
  • 4 weeks of the holiday accrued during the family leave period
  • Followed by 9 weeks unpaid leave.  

This is a better plan than taking BPPL as it allows him to access 13 weeks of statutory paid leave.

Example 2

Birth: Mother is self-employed and therefore does not qualify for Shared Parental Leave.  Father is University employee.

Mother dies in childbirth.

Father had submitted plans to take:

  • statutory paternity leave from birth to week 2
  • OUAPPL from week 39-49

After the mother dies he changes his plans in regard to Paternity leave and instead takes :

  • BPPL from birth to week 26 at full pay
  • Followed by 2 weeks statutory paternity leave paid at statutory pay rate only (as full pay entitlement of 26 weeks is exhausted).
  • Followed by 4 weeks of his accrued holiday entitlement (full pay)
  • Followed by 20 weeks unpaid leave

This policy takes effect from 6 April 2026

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