Maternity Allowance - is this normal?

Christie_L

Hello helpful people

I sent off my forms to claim Maternity Allowance 4 weeks ago, around the beginning of August. I haven't heard anything back from them yet so called them on Tuesday to get an update. The perfectly-polite but not-so-helpful gentleman on the phone told me they have no record of my claim but "don't worry as that's not unusual". He then told me to try calling back in 2 weeks .

I recently had to stop work on childcare/health grounds and don't qualify for SMP, but as far as I can tell I do qualify for MA.

At the moment our family are struggling as hubby's wage falls £80 per month short of our mortgage & bills and we really need to start receiving that money until I can go back to work after baby is born. I'm currently 32 weeks pregnant.

This is the first time I've claimed any sort of benefits like this (apart from CB & CTC) and wondered if it was normal to have to wait so long even to get a claim acknowledged??

Thanks & best wishes, Christie x

stazi

Apparently there is a baby boom and this is delaying MA claims. More info here-
http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/pdfs/MA_recovery_CRG_1_9_8.doc