Maternity Allowance and Enhanced Maternity Pay

[Confusedwithmaternityleave]

I've already called maternity action and DWP and both have said it's fine but I'm not sure exactly how it will work. Because of days of service I don't qualify for SMP. My employer in a very good will gesture has promised to pay me 12 weeks full pay regardless. However, everything I've read says that I will lose MA automatically on going back to work, but then how can my employer pay me those 12 weeks and not affect my MA? DWP and maternity action both assured me it wasn't a problem because it was not linked to SMP but I'm still confused about it. Tia

Because it’s not about the money but the fact that you would no longer be on maternity leave why the MA would be stopped of course.

What an employer chooses to pay is their choice.

If you are a small employer SMP is claimed back from the government (HMRC) in full, anything else isn't.

So my employer would notify that I'm not on ML anymore (or me as I think it's the case with MA).

The key thing is you are only allowed to work for 10 days while in receipt of ma. Nowhere does it say you are only allowed to be paid for more than ten days, only that you cannot work for more than ten.

If you are not working, then you will be fine.

What a lovely employer you have!

I'm beyond grateful! Thanks to this I'm actually able to afford to go on ML for 6 months. Unfortunately I can't afford anything beyond that. Without it, I wouldn't be able to pay the bills so I'll always be extremely grateful to them.