Maternity leave dilemma

[chineybumps]

Posting on AIBU because I have less than a week to tell my company that I'm pregnant yet again.

I've been on maternity leave since April 2021 and will be taking the full year. I had only been with the company since August 2020 so I only qualified for SMP and not the company's maternity sceme.

I'm pregnant again and will be due at the end of April so will be going straight on maternity leave again. This time I qualify for the company's maternity scheme which I've copied and pasted below.

• 8 weeks at 100% of your normal pay
• 8 weeks of Statutory Maternity Pay topped up to 50% of your average weekly
earnings if this is higher
• 23 weeks of statutory maternity pay
• The remaining 13 weeks would be taken as unpaid leave

I plan to leave work once my second maternity leave ends. I'm more than happy to just receive SMP from the beginning (it's really not much different from their policy anyway) as I don't want to have to pay any money back when I want to leave.

Now my question is, can I let them know this when I send them my MATB1 form letting them know I'm pregnant? I have to outline when I plan to go on maternity leave so in this email can I just say something like, 'Can I receive SMP from the beginning of my leave as opposed to the company's policy as I may consider leaving upon my return?' Or is it best not to mention leaving?

I recently saw a post saying a woman mentioned leaving before she started her maternity leave and her work paid her SMP in one huge chunk just so they could take her off their payroll and she got taxed MASSIVELY.

The other option is that I take the enhanced pay and take the annual leave I would have accumulated from 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 once my second maternity leave ends and use that to technically 'work' instead of paying the company back.

I've just read that back and I'm so confused so I hope others can understand my predicament😭 please help! What do I do?!

@chineybumps

Just an update to all those that have helped so far. I get paid four weekly and was due to get paid tomorrow and it turns out my SMP has stopped already🙃 I thought tomorrow would be the last payment but clearly not!

I've sent my MATB1 form and the company's pregnancy form over to HR and my line manager. I asked a couple of questions regarding what I can do with my annual leave and also asked how much money would need to be paid back to the company if I decided to leave as it's not written in the maternity policy.

I've also said I'd like my maternity leave to end so I can start my second maternity leave the end of January instead of April. As a pp mentioned, I'd be going three months without any SMP so why not start my maternity leave as early as possible so I'm still receiving something!

They can take up to 28 days to respond so let's hope they reply sooner rather than later as the 31st of Jan is only 25 days away, welp! Thanks for the help everyone X

They can make you give eight weeks’ notice to finish your maternity leave early, so taking 28 days to reply might be a mute point.

moot

@TheSnowyOwl yes I did see that mentioned in the maternity policy actually. Is there any point in them getting 8 weeks notice when all I want to do is go back on maternity leave anyway? If that's the case tho I'll just take the 52 weeks and go on maternity again beginning if April as planned so it's all good!

How did you get on @chineybumps?