AIBU to tutor when I'm on maternity leave?

[kateskates]

I'm a teacher on maternity leave, I wanted to tutor a few hours a week to make a little bit of money. Am I allowed to do this if I'm on maternity or will I be breaking some rules?
Tutoring means I could do two or three hours a week in the evenings only and would fit around my baby.

Surely would depend on what your current employment contract states, but would assume not. I thought most contracts forbid other employment/earnings without permission from them, as you usually agree that they will be your sole employer.

You are allowed to work as a self employed worker while on maternity leave. (You do need to be registered as self employed. Which you can do even if you also have an employed job)

I have a part time self employed job that I did on the side. So while on maternity leave I continued to do this for a bit of extra money.

Contact HMRC and they will tell you :-)

If you were tutoring before you went on maternity leave and it presumably wasn't your "main" job, then fine.

You are one maternity leave from the teaching role.

Your earnings should be deducted from any statutory maternity pay that you're getting, and would be deducted if you declared them.

You're not meant to work while on mat leave, that's why it's called leave. You can't top it up with extra cash, what would be the point in the government paying mat pay in that case? Everyone could just work part time during their mat leave!

By the way, the government reimburses employers the statutory mat pay amount. So it's not a victimless crime, ultimately the taxpayer is getting shafted in this scenario.

I have a friend who did contract work on mat leave and didn't declare it, still received her mat pay. It pissed me off but I didn't report her because I'm not a twat. She was a bit twattish to do it though. It's basically cheating the system.

remainoptimistic yes you can. If you are registered as self employed.

For example (not my real jobs!)

I work 20 hours a week for my employed job for company X. I receive SMP from them.

I also do ad-hoc self employed work as a hairdresser. I declare this and do a self assessment each year. I do not receive Maternity Allowance as I receive SMP instead.

I am allowed to continue my ad-hoc hair dressing work as long as I continue to declare it.

Go for it. As long as you only do cash in hand!

Take the cash and use it to top up maternity pay.

I work in local government, so may have a similar position to being a teacher (but maybe not). In essence I wasn't permitted to work in any alternative paid employment whilst on mat leave. I was even not allowed to work on the elections which would have been through my existing employer (although paid separately)!!!

Check with your HR department

That's true. Check your teaching contract. If it says you are not allowed to take on employment elsewhere then you wouldn't be allowed.

I was thinking about it from an HMRC point of view.

I have a friend who had a small side business before she was pregnant. She could only work 10 days while on mat leave.

Isn't thos why you can so up to 10 days KIT?

I do believe this is allowed.
Makes me so angry though. I'm solely self employed and am not allowed to work anymore than 10 kit days whilst off if I want to keep my measly maternity allowance for 9 months and keep my business afloat so I have a job to go back to. Yet it's possible for an employed person to earn in the side with no implications.
So bloody unfair

If you can't afford it you can return to work early?? It doesn't seem right that you can go out and work and still be in receipt of smp. Doubt your employees would be to pleased either!!

I'm not going back to my school, I've moved two and a half hours away by train to be closer to my parents, so I'm not returning to work. From Sept I'll be doing cover teaching for the flexibility. I just thought an hour or two a week would be useful for the money, although I wouldn't be making much, but also to keep in touch with curriculum and keep my mind active.

I did a marking contract for edexcel whilst on mat leave from a teaching post. Most of my marking team were also on maternity leave.

I don't see why not. I'm a teacher and I do other work for some of the school holidays. My school is fine with it. In fact they like it because a) I'm upskilling and b) I'm giving our parents a childcare option.

I think it's a good idea. The only question to ask is whether you're going to be able to cope ok with doing a bit of work alongside looking after baby, recovering etc. If the answer to that is yes, then do it. No downsides.

As others have said yes you can but will need to register as self employed, and do a tax return

If it is private tuition in your or their home and just a couple of hours a week you just quietly do it. If it is an actual tutoring business then you need to register. Certainly it doesn’t impact on a teachers pension as long as you don’t move into another tax band.

Yes you can if your contract allows you to have other employment and they cannot have different rules for those on maternity leave. Any work you do is subject to tax so you would need to declare it.

I did 2-3 hours tutoring a week for 3 months on and off while on maternity so it added up to less than 32 hours or 4 full working days. Not that big a deal and it hardly made me a millionaire but it did pay for a few Christmas presents and more importantly gave me a little bit of confidence before going back to work.

I do however have a small business registered with the HMRC and will be declaring it all when I do next year's tax return so all will be above board.