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  "figure": {
    "id": "employment.sap.continuous_employment_weeks",
    "name": "Statutory Adoption Pay: continuous employment qualifier",
    "category": "employment",
    "jurisdiction": "GB",
    "unit": "weeks",
    "value_type": "count",
    "currency": null,
    "cadence": null,
    "source_type": "act",
    "act_probe": {
      "verdict": "ACT-HOLDS",
      "provision": "section-171ZL-2-b",
      "probed": "2026-07-29",
      "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/4/section/171ZL/data.xml",
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      "tokens": [
        "he has been in employed earner's employment with an employer for a continuous period of at least 26 weeks ending with the relevant week"
      ],
      "commentaries_c": [
        "M_C_57febaab-22a9-41c2-a845-d3c4a418c329",
        "M_C_8657e041-c76a-4bc9-c705-4fc973ebe713"
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      "expires": null
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    "values": [
      {
        "value": 26,
        "value_minor": null,
        "effective_from": "2002-12-08",
        "effective_to": null,
        "announcement_date": null,
        "enacted_date": null,
        "instrument_made": true,
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            "citation": "Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, c. 4 s. 171ZL (\"a continuous period of at least 26 weeks ending with the relevant week\")",
            "uri": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/4/section/171ZL",
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          {
            "role": "guidance",
            "citation": "https://www.gov.uk/adoption-pay-leave (\"have been continuously employed by your employer for at least 26 weeks\")",
            "uri": "https://www.gov.uk/adoption-pay-leave",
            "retrieved": "2026-07-29T15:05:13Z",
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    "derivation": null,
    "invariants": [],
    "lineage": [],
    "definitions": [
      {
        "from": null,
        "to": null,
        "text": "The qualifying period of continuous employment with the same employer that a person must complete to be entitled to Statutory Adoption Pay. Stated by this payment's OWN provision: the figure happens to be 26 weeks for every statutory payment today, but each is set separately and can move separately.",
        "instrument": "Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 s.171ZL"
      }
    ],
    "applicability": {
      "basis": "pay_period_start",
      "note": "Measured back from the qualifying week defined by s.171ZL, not from the payment date or the tax year. Part 12ZB came into force on 8 December 2002; the payment itself first ran from a later April, a date the archived documents do not state.",
      "article": "Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 s.171ZL(2)"
    },
    "scope_note": "s.171ZL also empowers regulations to treat a person as having completed the period in prescribed circumstances — broken service under successive contracts, for instance — so the count is the statutory floor rather than the whole test.",
    "notes": "Deliberately NOT one shared figure across the payments. The Act repeats the condition per payment and each provision carries its own regulation-making power, so a merged row would be one legal claim standing for five, and wrong for four of them the moment any one changed. No invariant couples them for the same reason. effective_from is the commencement of the Part that states the condition, read from the F-note on the archived section: \"Pt. 12ZB inserted (8.12.2002) by Employment Act 2002 (c. 22), ss. 4, 55(2); S.I. 2002/2866, art. 2(2), Sch. 1 Pt. 2\".",
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        "role": "legislation",
        "citation": "Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, c. 4 s. 171ZL (\"a continuous period of at least 26 weeks ending with the relevant week\")",
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      },
      {
        "role": "guidance",
        "citation": "https://www.gov.uk/adoption-pay-leave (\"have been continuously employed by your employer for at least 26 weeks\")",
        "uri": "https://www.gov.uk/adoption-pay-leave",
        "retrieved": "2026-07-29T15:05:13Z",
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