Does Annual Leave accrue on Paid Parental Leave?

[Glen Callaghan]

Hi
Does Annual Leave & Personal Leave accrue while someone is on Paid Parental Leave (the 18 weeks)?
Fair Work seems to say no as in their eyes the PPL is a separate Govt scheme and so in essence in their mind the Parental Leave is unpaid.
But... our company policy is to top a persons salary on top of the govt PPL and therefore we are paying the employee a portion of their pay as a benefit - so do you think we should allow their Annual Leave accrue during this period?

Also Public Holidays?

I worked in the UK before coming to Australia and there when someone was on maternity leave all statutory leave was protected which meant they did still accrue leave while on maternity.
But from what FWA has said this doesn't apply here?

Appreciate your thoughts?

[Neb-Maat-Re]

In the case where the employee is receiving the Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave only, then definitely not.

In the case where you are topping up the employees payments, there could be an argument they should accrue something. But should they accrue their full entitlement or just a pro-rata portion of it?

For example, if the CPPL was 80% of their normal earnings and you were topping up 20%, should they accrue their entitlement as if they were a full-time employee, or a pro-rata amount as if they were part-time. After all, in this example you are only really paying them for 1 day a week.

I don't think you are obliged to give them any accrual for the CPPL portion. I think it comes down to a policy decision.

[Cottoneyes]

I'd be putting the question to the powers that be at your organisation and re-writing the policy that tops up the govt PPL. Remember it is not just the annual and personal leave, but also the long service leave you need to take account of as well

It's a grey area, however I think you would be a good chance of being ruled against if taken to the ombudsmen.

I think if you had a policy that the top up pay was a maternity bonus and not leave, you could quite easily say that no leave would accrue, which is the way alot of companies go in this situation.

I don't believe the govt PPL extends due to public holidays, so I doubt your top up payments would either.

Statutory leave only accrues during paid work or paid leave - unpaid leave, including any unpaid maternity leave, can and in most cases will stop all accruals.