Help! I'm writing up my formal maternity leave request......

[Creena]

...and I'm stuck on working out how much annual leave I should calculate.

Basically, my maternity leave will span over two annual leave years. I know what I have left to take during my 2008/09 leave year and I know that I will accrue annual leave while I'm on ordinary maternity leave (OML). My OML runs up to the end of April 2009, which is during my 2009/10 leave year. So, I will have started to accrue some annual leave before going on to additional maternity leave. I also know that according to the working time regulations act, I am entitled to further leave to account for things like bank holidays etc during the 2009/10 leave year. What I don't know is how much or where to go to work it all out! I'm aiming to take all outstanding leave as part of my maternity leave request so I do need to know what the figures are.

Sadly, the organisation I work for doesn't have an HR department and I have been through the policies contained in the staff handbook but I'm still no clearer. If anyone could be point me in the direction of some useful websites or legislation, it would be much appreciated! Thanks!

[MamaG]

I've just done my formal letter
nightmare isn't it

I didn't think you got extra days for bank holidays though?

[Jojay]

Basically you will accrue leave as if you were working normally.

So if you get, for example, 4 wks and 3 days per year, you need to make sure you take your full annual allowance before your maternity leave kicks in.

If you return to work part way through the holiday year, you will have accrued some holiday even though you haven't been there. So you could take some holiday as soon as your maternity pay runs out.

I don't know if that helps at all, but let me explain my situation.

I'm due on 31st October this year and I have 21/2 weeks holiday remaining from this years allowance. So although I leave work on Oct 1st, I will be on holiday for the first 2 1/2 weeks, then my maternity pay will kick in.

I'm due back at work in about June / July next year and will have earned some holiday from the 2009 allowance. So I'll probably take a week or two when my maternity pay runs out, to delay doing back to work by a week or two.

Hope that makes some sense.

Haven't heard of extra days for bank hols though, I'm not sure that is right.

[firsttimemama]

What is class as OML now? Is it nine months ie the amount you get SMP for - and AML is 3 months? I assumed, seemingly incorrectly that holidays accrued for all of matleave, Now I'm cofused.

[Playingthe9monthwait]

I could be wrong but I think I've read that mat leave is up to 12 months (9 months paid). The first 6 months your holiday builds up as normal, e.g if your compnay give you 30 days a year you will get 15 days. The second 6 months the holiday builds up as per the legal min which is currently 24 days a year, so you will get 12 days (although I believe in April 2009 it goes up to 28 days a year). I'm really not an expert though as I have all this to coem myself! Try googling Mat leave, I'm sure there's plenty of info out there on the various govt websites.

[Playingthe9monthwait]

Direct Gov website here

[Playingthe9monthwait]

here also.

[Creena]

Thanks for all of the info, ladies. You're all so helpful and it's much appreciated!

Yep, maternity leave requests are a nightmare all right. This has been muddling my brain up for the past few hours now. When I mentioned bank holidays etc, I meant the 24 days legal minimum that Playingthe9monthwait mentioned. I just didn't phrase it properly! Also, OML is for the first 26 weeks of your maternity leave and AML is the next 26 weeks. You get 52 weeks as maternity leave in total (made up of both OML and AML) but you'll only receive statutory maternity pay for 39 weeks and that's if you qualify for it. It's a blardy maze, that's what it is. I've also been further confused by the change in the law which means that women with due dates after 5th October 2008 are now entitled to accure the same contractual benefits during AMl as they do during OML. I don't know if this applies to annual leave though. GAH!

Thanks for all the advice ladies and for the links too, Playingthe9monthwait. I'm a helluva lot clearer on this now than I was when I posted for your help!

[twinklytoes]

creena - was just going to ask if you were aware of the edd 5th october changes. but you are.

to confirm yes you are entitled to contractual annual leave if baby due after 5th october. had my HR dept confirm this last week