Work being funny about maternity leave/ pay

[sickmumma]

Hi sorry wasn't sure where to post this.

I work very part time (9 hours a week) term time only in a nursery. I am 16 weeks pregnant and have told work. My manager is getting in a flap about sorting my maternity pay.

She keeps asking when I will leave which I am not sure yet but prob start of Jan. We are paid term time only but this is paid over the year without a break 2 weekly with holiday entitlement etc added on top.

She is now asking me to go to being paid two weekly but as I work, so I would be paid a little more each week but I wouldn't get a pay over the school breaks. I don't want to do this as I will have weeks with no pay at all and the holidays is generally when I will
Need it most. She is saying the reason for this is because she doesn't know when I will
Leave she can't accurately work out how much to pay me basically, however my thought was holiday should still be added anyway so it shouldn't make a difference?

I don't earn enough to get SMP but should qualify for maternity allowance. (Only earn £120 every 2 weeks after deductions) I am
Also worried if I have breaks in my pay I may then not be entitled to maternity allowance at all but I haven't looked into this properly.

Can anyone advise?

Bump

I have just applied for maternity allowance. You just need 13 wage slips covering a 66 week period. The maternity allowance shows you how to work out what this period is (for you). They don’t need to be in a row or even from the same job but they recommend submitting the slips with the highest earnings

That all sounds odd, as if you are only getting maternity allowance your manager has nothing to do with it!

I wouldn't agree to change how you are paid until you have fully checked out any consequences. Even basics like budgeting are a lot harder and it might make claiming benefits or financial support for childcare a nightmare if you go back to work as your income will be variable.

Can you outline what you mean by holiday pay added on top?

Is it possible that you will be paid too much holiday pay for the time you have worked under the current system?

Phone Maternity Action today and get legal advice from them.

@SassitudeandSparkle

What she means is we work the 38 weeks of the school year, she then works out our holiday entitlement for the year and adds this on top of the 38 weeks so 42 weeks roughly I think and then this is divided by the 26 (paid 2 weekly) weeks to work out our pay amount. She is just starting the new school year now, what she is worried about is overpaying me before I leave as I will be leaving part way through the year. She wants to pay me term time and then add my
Holiday entitlement on at the end before I start maternity and then add I guess what I earn over my maternity to the other end? Which is fine but I am worried to not get paid for the school holidays as over Christmas it means loosing a whole pay check.

If they pay holidays with every salary payment, I assume that you can't actually take any of these holidays? If so, then she should be able to work out your holiday entitlement on a weekly basis and pay you the amount you accrue every fortnight.

However - due to your hours, I imagine the amount you accrue every fortnight is very small, so I can kind of see where she is coming from.
Would they be willing to make the holiday payments at the end of term instead of the salary payments (so you'd get the holiday money in the holiday period, but obviously not as much as your regular salary).

They could carry on as normal, but you may have to pay something back at the end then (best avoided!).

I am now thinking perhaps then she is right? And maybe this would be better as my payments would actually weekly be higher for the qualifying period for maternity allowance which mean I would get more maternity allowance? I was going to finish the first week in jan, but this way I would only have one pay half pay (for the October half term) and then hopefully I could take a weeks holiday that I will have accrued when we break up for December and start my maternity a couple of weeks early than planned but then add the other 3 weeks I will gain for the maternity on to the end again so would work out the same?