Employer not confirming maternity leave

Hani.86

I am 24 weeks pregnant. I told my employer about 8 weeks ago. I was promised a meeting where we will sort everything out but that never happened. After multiple times speaking to them, sending emails, nothing happened I sent them an official letter via email (when I was 21 weeks), I told them when I want to start maternity leave, and that I want to take annual leave beforehand, and I asked them to confirm in writing within 28 days, which is statutory requirement. But nobody is getting back to me, all they did was the risk assessment. Nobody actually confirmed my Maternity leave dates and also they never approved (or refused) my holiday. I am not sure if I will be able to take them before ML or after, because apparently I might have not enough holiday accrued by july to take a month off, but on the other hand, we cannot carry anything over to the following year (april to april in my job). I asked them many times, I asked managers, directors, admins, and nobody knows who deals with the annual leave (normally they deal with holiday requests within a day or two, now it has been over 3 weeks). There is no HR or anything, it is tiny company. I sent them few emails reminding them about confirming my Mat Leave (now it is day 24 of 28 deadline) but they are ignoring them. I also gave them my mat b1 so they can sort my statutory maternity pay but they are ignoring that too. Is there anything I can do?

Chemical_Grrl

Hi Hani, contact ACAS for advice, they'll be able to advise you http://m.acas.org.uk good luck x

Chemical_Grrl

Read this too http://m.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1753 also phone Acas for advice x

Savvy_Sue

Hani.86 wrote: »

I am not sure if I will be able to take them before ML or after, because apparently I might have not enough holiday accrued by july to take a month off, but on the other hand, we cannot carry anything over to the following year (april to april in my job).

Actually, when you're on m/l or sick leave, you can carry leave over to the following year if you've not been able to take it.

dawyldthing

Did you keep a copy of the mat1b form? They can take a while though to do the paperwork, but as long as you gave them the mat1b form in plenty of time there probably doing all the paperwork behind the scenes before confirming it. (mine only confirmed mine 3 weeks ago and that’s 6 weeks from birth and I still don’t know what I’ll get money wise until I get paid as I know it won’t be full, but that’s a different thing completely).

Other thing is did you work for them long enough to qualify?

Hani.86

Yes I definitely qualify... they finally confirmed the maternity leave, they said I can’t take the annual leave before but can take it at the end of ML. But still waiting for the SMP confirmation...