Recommendation 15

The Government must consider steps to address flaws in SPL, increase take up and widen access. The Government’s review must examine the function and necessity of SPL’s complex eligibility criteria, with a view to simplifying or removing the employment status, time in service and earnings criteria. Its objective for reforms of SPL must be to widen access to as broad a range of working parents as possible, including the self-employed and those on lower incomes. (Recommendation, Paragraph 92)