Occupational parental pay (OPP) is pay that an employer gives to employees on parental leave, over and above the statutory minimum. It's usually set out in the employment contract or company policy, and an organisation can have more than one OPP agreement.
In Cintra iQ, you record each agreement as an OPP scheme, then apply it to an employee's leave. Schemes can be applied to maternity, paternity, and adoption leave.
How OPP schemes and payment schedules work
An OPP scheme holds the rules of your agreement: how many weeks are paid at each rate, how statutory pay is treated, and what counts as full pay.
When an employee takes parental leave, Cintra iQ uses the scheme to calculate a payment schedule in advance. The schedule covers the whole period of leave and shows:
The statutory and occupational pay due each week.
How much is paid in each payroll period.
The schedule isn't updated automatically. If anything changes during the leave, such as a backdated pay award or new statutory rates, you need to refresh the schedule manually. Where a pay award affects the employee's statutory pay, you'll usually also need to recalculate their average weekly earnings (AWE) to apply the Alabaster ruling.
Whole weeks and part weeks
There are two ways of making the payments:
Whole weeks: pay is made in whole weeks, so a monthly-paid employee receives pay in a pattern of 4, 4 and 5 weeks.
Part weeks: partial weeks of pay are calculated, typically so that the employee can be paid in calendar months.
The method used is set by the payment schedule method in Employer Details.
Paying OPP to an employee
Set up the OPP scheme. You only need to do this once for each agreement.
Create a calendar event (maternity, paternity or adoption) for the employee.
Enter the leave dates on the SMP, SPP or SAP claim, including evidence of statutory maternity pay and the expected date of birth for maternity.
Apply the OPP scheme to the maternity, paternity or adoption payment claim.
Refresh the schedule to calculate the payments. For more information, see calculating statutory paternity payments or creating statutory maternity payments (SMPs).