Maternity Leave

partysis81

HI, not sure if this is the correct place for this.

My sister in law is 20 weeks pregnant, and works 10 hours a week at the local school.
Her boss at work seems to know very little about maternity rights etc as she has said "you are the first member of my staff to be pregnant". She then rang her own boss and he said she will only get about 13 weeks maternity leave

Im sure this is wrong, as i thought there was a minimum for everyone?

I printed some stuff off the CAB website, and it looks like shes entitled to at least 26 weeks.

Does anyone know for sure what the entitlement is?
she will have worked for this employer for a year when the baby is due

thanks

callansdad

I am not 100% sure but i have been off on maternity leave twice in the last 3 years. Because she is only working 10 hours a week she probably wouldn't be earning enough for SMP (Statutory Maternity Pay), this is paid by the employers but they are subsidised from the government. She will however be entitled to MA (Maternity Allowance). This is paid through the Job Centre. The threshold was £30 a week last year so she should be earning more than this. She should be entitled to 26 wks paid mat leave. The forms are easy to fill out but she will have to include payslips (13 i think). They will take an average of this and this is what she will get a week. The payslips dont have to be consecutive, i filled mine up with holiday payslips and ones with overtime, i ended up getting paid around £30 a week more than what i earned working.

http://www.tiger.gov.uk/

Tiger is an interactive website from the government, it will tell her what she is entitled to

partysis81

thanks for that, i know she earns around the £30 mark per week, so ive printed her some things of the tiger website

ta muchly

fesdufun

Good advice from callansdad also try https://www.maternityalliance.org.uk. It is a fantastic website for advice, there is also a telephone helpline and they will send you leaflets (you may have to pay for some).

Spendless

maternity alliance has closed but you are referred to elsewhere that can help. I got MA for my youngest I had to have worked for 26 weeks out of the 66 weeks before baby was born(didn't have to be consecutive weeks) and earned at least £30 a week for those weeks. I submitted x amount of wage slips (I had some that I'd earned bonus on so submitted them) and they worked out how much I was paid from that. This money is paid for 26 weeks.

BTW the min wage is over £5 an hour so if she works 10 hours she'd be getting nearer £50 than the £30 a week needed to qualify

fesdufun

Spendless wrote:

maternity alliance has closed but you are referred to elsewhere that can help. I got MA for my youngest I had to have worked for 26 weeks out of the 66 weeks before baby was born(didn't have to be consecutive weeks) and earned at least £30 a week for those weeks. I submitted x amount of wage slips (I had some that I'd earned bonus on so submitted them) and they worked out how much I was paid from that. This money is paid for 26 weeks.

BTW the min wage is over £5 an hour so if she works 10 hours she'd be getting nearer £50 than the £30 a week needed to qualify

Thanks for letting us know that. We refer to people to it all the time at work so I will stop doing that now!

andycarmi

Hi I m pregnant at the mo.

Part time employees have the same rights to maternity leave, However if you work part-time you may be on a low income and therefore only qualify for SMP because you earn less than £84. In that case you should look at Maternity Allowance, or if not entitled to that, Incapacity Benefit may be payable.

Contact the local Benifits agency for info.

Also as she works for a school (council) like I do. I went onto the local councils website and that had infomation for the boroughs Maternity Leave and maternity rights.

snoopkat

I too am pregnant and have had to find out about Maternity allowance as I recently changed jobs and therefore wouldnt get Maternity pay.

You can get MA as long as you earnt £30 for at least 26 weeks of the 66 weeks pre birth. The max rate you would get is approx £108 per week for 26 weeks.

Other than that the job will be obliged to keep your position open for you for return in 26 weeks, in some cases you may be able to go on for a further 26 weeks unpaid.

Depending on the status of your partner (assuming you have one - unlike me!) you would then be able to claim income support, child tax credit and of course child benefit. It seems to work out at about £120 per week.