Neonatal Care Leave

New legislation has recently been passed which means from 6 April 2025, a new type of statutory or family leave is now available for parents of newborn babies who need intensive care. Neonatal care leave applies to parents of children born on or after 6 April 2025 and enables a parent to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave.

Neonatal Care Leave is pensionable in the following circumstances:

• Statutory Neonatal Care Pay

Members may be entitled to Statutory Neonatal Care Pay. If they’re eligible, they’ll receive the lower of £187.18 a week (2025/26) or 90% of their average weekly earnings. This’ll be paid to the member in the same way as they receive their salary (e.g. whether this is weekly or monthly), taking account of any deductions for tax and National Insurance. This again is pensionable in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, and they’ll be treated as being in receipt of full pay for the purposes of pension accrual.

• Neonatal Care Leave which is at least half pay

Neonatal Care Leave which is at least half pay, will also be pensionable in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme.

In both cases, members will continue to accrue benefits on their full pensionable salary. Members will also remain covered for in-service death benefits while on Neonatal Care Leave.

Carer’s Leave

Carer’s leave was introduced on 6 April 2024. Unlike Neonatal care leave, it’s unpaid. Nevertheless, should you continue to pay at least half pay to the member while they’re on Carer’s Leave, they’ll continue to accrue further benefits in the Scheme. If, however, the member receives less than half pay e.g. nil pay, it’ll revert to non-pensionable.

In cases where Carer’s leave is less than half pay (i.e. unpaid), it still counts as Family Leave. So even if the member receives nil pay, they’re still recorded as ‘05’ with all days excluded. They’ll be covered for in-service death benefits while on Carer’s Leave.

Recording through Monthly Contribution Reconciliation (MCR)

For MCR the service should be recorded under ‘FL’ Family Leave, provided the member’s in receipt of statutory Neonatal Care Pay or at least half pay.

There are two possible indicators that can be used to record different types of leave:

• ‘FL’ Family Leave
• 'OS' Occupational Sick.

For both Neonatal Care Leave and Carer’s Leave, this would be part of ‘Family Leave’ (FL) under the regulations. It’d need to be recorded as ‘FL’ provided the member’s in receipt of statutory Neonatal Care Leave or at least half pay for Neonatal Care Leave or Carer’s Leave.

Monthly Data Collection (MDC)

Under MDC, it’s not possible to record Neonatal Leave or Carer’s Leave on MDC returns and contributions are received separately.

You’ll need to continue to record the service as pensionable if the member is in receipt of statutory Neonatal Care Leave, Neonatal Leave or for Carer’s Leave of at least half pay as described above.

Similarly, for Carer’s leave, where this is less than half pay, this’ll need to be recorded as ‘days excluded’ as described above for MCR.