Maternity pay

HelenW26

I am currently working on 80% pay with most of my team on furlough with 80% pay. My understanding from Martin’s post is that if I was on furlough I would still get 100% pay for maternity leave, however I can’t see if this would still be the same if I’m working? In normal circumstances I would be entitled to 100% pay for 20 weeks but currently I’ve been told I will be on 80% instead. I’m due to go on maternity leave in October at which point my reduced pay will still be at 80%. Thanks 

Mrsn

I would recommend clarifying this with your employer, I think if I’m honest it’s hard to know at that point in October how things are going to be especially with the furlough scheme winding up at the end of October.

Jeremy535897

HelenW26 said:

I am currently working on 80% pay with most of my team on furlough with 80% pay. My understanding from Martin’s post is that if I was on furlough I would still get 100% pay for maternity leave, however I can’t see if this would still be the same if I’m working? In normal circumstances I would be entitled to 100% pay for 20 weeks but currently I’ve been told I will be on 80% instead. I’m due to go on maternity leave in October at which point my reduced pay will still be at 80%. Thanks 

There's a lot of detailed guidance for employers here, which you can direct them to:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/statutory-maternity-pay-manually-calculate-your-employees-payments

You will see the point about receiving SMP based on pre-furlough rates. As you say, you are in a different situation, as your contract of employment has been amended to reduce your wage to 80% of what it was. What were the terms of that amendment? Ideally you should ask for the rate to be raised back up to 100% before you go on maternity leave. After all, they should recover 92% or 100% of it from HMRC.

HelenW26

Thank you. I’ll take a look at this. We have been told our pay will be reduced until the end of the year regardless of what happens. This will be 80% pay until August and then 75% from August until December. Although mine will be 80% now as my maternity calculation is based on my current pay apparently.

Jeremy535897

The link I posted gives details of what pay your SMP is based on (normally the average of the 8 weeks' pay before the 15th week before the week the baby is due).