maternity leave and voluntary redundancy

duemarch

Any advice greatfully received. On Tues i received a letter a work dated 7/1/11 about my company 'restructuring'. Basically, funding has been cut and there will be redundancies. There will be a consultation process, but there is no mention when this will be or how long it will take.
Anyhow, i'm curently pregnant and due to go on mat leave in the 1st week of march and had planned on returning to work after 9 months - November. In the letter though it says the company will be considering voluntary redundancies in the next 2 weeks but make no mention of what we would receive if we take voluntary redundancy. I'm pretty sure that they would want to make me redundant as my role isn't absolutely vital but i have no idea where i would stand with regards to getting my mat pay (i only get statutory) if i were to take voluntary redundancy or whether it would be better for me if i just go on leave as planned and wait for them to make me redundant? I've been there aout 4 years which if i get stat reduncy pay i understand i'd get about 4 weeks pay? Has anyone been in this situation? I have not mentioned anything about vol redundancy to my employer as i kinda don't want to burn any bridges if that makes sense.

getmore4less

I would just ask what the packages are.

How can anyone make a choice without that information.

Get the union or employee reps to ask the questions.

Statutory redundancy is capped at £380 per week.

pjcox2005

Just to point out, the flip side for the company may be that if you are only getting statutory maternity pay (which I recall that the company can reclaim) then you won't really be a cost, and potentially may decide not to return to work due to circumstances.

In that case, they may decide their is no point offering you redundancy with the cost associated with it.

Anyway, certainly worth asking what the package is so you can consider, but thought I'd post an extra perspective.

duemarch

thanks both. I found it a bit odd that they didn't say what a voluntary redundancy package would be, maybe they would tailor it depending who's asking? As its a tiny compny there is no union or employee reps so it will have to be discreet word with the finance lady i think. I also earn way less than £380 a week (but i am part-time).
pjcox2005 - those were precisely my thoughts - but perhaps as i have already returned to work after 1st child, they might presume i'd go back after the second (jury still out on that one).
thanks for your thoughts - i'll update when i know more.

LittleVoice

Though you say your role is not vital to the company, are there other positions there for which you would be qualified?

DevilsAdvocate1

I took voluntary redundancy when I had my second child. The only difference was I had already started my maternity leave. The company were not keen on making me redundant on maternity leave because you are very well protected by law. They had previously made someone redundant on maternity leave who had taken them to an industrial tribunal and won.

Anyway, I offered to sign any disclaimers they wanted as I wasn't intending to return (I didn't tell them this though). I signed some legal document to say that I wasn't being pushed into it and that I would not take them to a tribunal.

I had only worked for them for 2 years, so I got 2 weeks pay. On top of this, I received all the accrued holiday which was nearly 4 weeks. I was due to return from maternity leave in March, so the redundancy was effective from then. This meant I accrued all the holiday that I would have had I returned to the company. It also meant that I had to wait until March to receive the payout.

The good thing about the payout was that it was tax free, so it ended up being a tidy sum.

If I was you, I would work out how much maternity pay you would receive anyway and work out separately how much redundancy you would be entitled to as a legal minimum. Add the 2 figures together and this is the minimum you should take. Remember to accrue the holidays into your figures.

HTH. D.

duemarch

LittleVoice wrote: »

Though you say your role is not vital to the company, are there other positions there for which you would be qualified?

I'd say its highly unlikely - i'm the only part time member of staff so they would have to offer me something full time which they know i couldn't take.

Pootlebe

Forgive me. I am really confused and cannot find a definitive answer anywhere on the internet.

If you are made redundant (or take voluntary redundancy) whilst you would be entitled to SMP, does the company pay you BOTH or is your SMP included as part of the payment in lieu of notice -i.e. if I am getting 3 months redundancy pay do I get just 3 months pay (which includes my SMP) or 3 months pay then + SMP. I have read somewhere "Any payments made in respect of SMP or OMP during maternity leave can go towards meeting the employer’s obligations in respect of notice pay." which implies someone being made redundant whilst on maternity leave is WORSE off than someone who isn't since they only get their redundancy payoff and effectively lose out on the SMP they would have got anyways.

i.e. if I was made redundant whilst claiming Maternity allowance rather than SMP I would be £128 better off.


????


Very confused and would appreciate an answer as being offered Voluntary redundancy but can't work out if the first few months of redundancy pay are almost exactly what I would get from my 90% SMP anyway. So effectively my VR would be worthless?

getmore4less

best to start a new thread.

you ar confusing notice with redundancy you get(if eligable) both.

notice is full pay but maternity pay can be counted as contributing towards the total.

redundancy is extra.