Just been told I'm not entitled to maternity pay at my work after my baby has been born?

[elm26]

Hello

I emailed my manager today as have received no maternity pay today (it's our payday).

Why wasn't I told this when I handed in my MATB1 form at 18 weeks pregnant??

I'm completely blindsided.

She said the following;

"To qualify for SMP, you must have been earning on average an amount which at least equals the lower earnings limit which applies on the Saturday at the end of your qualifying week. The lower earnings limit (LEL) is the amount you have to earn before you are treated as paying National Insurance contributions.

The accountants have advised your average weekly earnings were not high enough to qualify for Statutory Maternity Pay.
I have a form that will be sent by recorded post together with your MATB1 which I am obliged to return so you may make an application for Maternity Allowance."

I was signed off sick for most of my pregnancy due to Hyperemesis, is this what she means regarding my average weekly earnings were not high enough?

Please help, I'm so anxious now and haven't told DH yet 😢 why wasn't this discussed with me before?!

Is this correct? I have no idea about these things.

Thanks in advance x

I actually think that your employer did have an obligation to tell you sooner.

The rules are that they must tell you within 7 days of making a decision that they do not have to pay you SMP. They then send you the form.

I think they probably made this decision at around week 25 of your pregnancy but, if we are charitable and say it was this month, it would have been around payroll cut off. (2 weeks ago).

Either payroll forgot to inform your boss, or your boss forgot to inform you.

In any case, I think there’s no recourse. (And, yes of course, you should have checked it all out for yourself but don’t be hard on yourself).

You haven’t been shafted, OP - you genuinely aren’t eligible for SMP, because you just haven’t been working. But your employer should have handled it better. I guess they weren’t feeling very empathetic or compassionate because, from their perspective, your pregnancy has just been a professional nightmare for them.

You will be eligible for maternity allowance! So do go and have a chat with your husband about it now.

Sorry to hear about your hyperemesis. I had that too and it’s so rotten. 💐

So where are you at right now are you post natal?
Get onto the Maternity Allowance people ASAP!!!!
I wasn't eligible for SMP due to not being a perm employee long enough so I got Maternity Allowance. The form is a bit of a ballache, just phone them ASAP they are lovely I remember phoning them and just get your form filled in. Don't panic it will be OK x

This happened to me. I was also signed off sick due to HG for weeks on end and didn't earn enough to qualify for SMP, and my manager didn't tell me about it until the day before I was due to start maternity leave. Definitely look into MA, I did qualify for this. And if I remember correctly, they did back pay what I was owed back to the first day of my maternity leave.

When I did payroll I would always inform an employee if they were not entitled to a statutory payment, especially SMP, and send them the MA information as standard. But as pp say, you are expected to know your own entitlement too.

Hope you can get the MA application in ASAP.

Who says payroll cut off is two weeks ago? That’s not a set thing for all places, my work processes a lot of payrolls and especially on the smaller company payrolls they only send in the info a couple of days before payday

They could also have reasonably presumed that op would have had the nous to clue herself in 🤷🏻‍♀️
How is it their fault that she didn’t?

So you haven't qualified because you were off sick and were just earning SSP?
IMO that's really cruel, they could have warned you that this would be the case. I wouldn't have realised this either especially while being so poorly.
Apply for what you can from the government and enjoy your baby, it will all work itself out. You are a little worse off but try not to let it affect this time with your little one. Tell DH and you can work it out together, I'm sure he will understand.

No its not. For all they knew OP was aware she wouldn't qualify

Was it contained within a policy document to which you had access?

Well you should have checked yourself but also I thought before you went off your work needed to give you a predicted payments for when you are off, did they not do that? Once I confirmed when I was starting mat leave my work did it. It's actually a little more now stat mat pay has gone up but gave a general idea.

Will you get paid for accrued annual leave? Bank holidays? Can you do KIT days?

They cannot do any calculations until they receive your Matb1, so your ineligibility would not have been known at that point. The qualifying period is approx between 16 and 24 weeks so if you were off during that time it could affect your entitlement if your average pay was then less than £123 pw. www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave/eligibility#:~:text=To%20qualify%20for%20SMP%20you,the%20expected%20week%20of%20childbirth

The employer is supposed to write and confirm maternity start and end dates and the amount she will get paid. Doesnt sound like they did that so it's them at fault, not OP

Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP)

Tell your employer you want to stop work to have a baby and the day you want your SMP to start. You must give them at least 28 days’ notice (in writing if they ask for it) and proof that you’re pregnant.

Your employer must confirm within 28 days how much SMP you’ll get and when it will start and stop.

If they decide you’re not eligible, they must give you form SMP1 within 7 days of making their decision and explain why.

Agreed.

I was pregnant when I started this job and definitely don't qualify for SMP. HR are still going to sit me down and talk through Mat Allowance, because they're not dicks.

My company payroll is outsourced.

When I did payroll I'd have known someone was pregnant but not informed payroll company

I'd have processed the sickness notes

Then given the matb form when the lady went off on maternity leave. Payroll sone week before paid.

So I assume it's something like that. Now reading this thread I'd be aware of the sickness /smp issue but until it happens the payroll person may have no idea.

If the employee had asked, I may have twigged if they asked after being off sick but if I calculated it at the start as ab example I may not think to go back and change it a few months later. Unless I had leaned the precise rules. (Which the payroll company knew and I didn't)

So it's one that could catch many small companies out who outsource payroll unfortunately.

Ooh get on to pregnant then screwed OP. They'll help.

I'm astounded at the lack of sympathy for OP here when it seems like her employers should have let her know sooner.

Posts like this are just condescending boasts about how clever they were compared to the OP, they’re not designed to be helpful at all.

I think you should have some responsibility for knowing what your entitlements are yourself. It's not completely up to your employer.

There are lots of assumptions that every payroll runs the same way - they don't. I work for a massive business that is 80% female so is processing multiple maternity pays every month. We upload the MAT1b to payroll when we get (around here the don't give till after 25 weeks) payroll do not process until the first week of the month that the individual is going on maternity leave. We then get a pay schedule to download and print.
When I was in a small independent business we checked as soon as we got the MAR1b, but I know other companies who outsource payroll those companies don't look at it till the come to run payroll the first month of maternity leave.
Yes it should be more standard so people have certainty, but it isn't. As a manager I try to keep on top of maternity legislation and put in house policies so I can help guide any members of my team through the maze.

I've had two kids fairly recently and had no idea about this do don't blame you at all op. What a shit system that a woman can lose her smp as a result of having hyperemesis! Whether op should have checked or not it's still a piss take

Hopefully you get your maternity allowance ASAP, it should be about the same amount x

Do they have a maternity policy?

Thanks everyone who has been understanding and offered advice. I will look into it all today with DH. I think I felt it has upset me as I would have thought I'd of been told before I chased up why I hadn't been paid on payday itself. Nobody really sees eye to eye with my manager but I won't go into that here, she's not the nicest person and I'll leave it at that. When I handed in my MATB1 form, we had a 10 minute meeting where she told me about how I could come in up to 10 days for "keeping in touch" days, agreed my leave date for maternity etc etc.

I completely get that I should have done in depth research into this but I was so ill with hyperemesis that I lost 2 stone during pregnancy, I was in and out of hospital on drips, I barely left the house other than to walk the dog for an hour or attend a midwife appointment. I obviously feel stupid enough without people actually pointing it out, I don't think anyone realises how debilitating it is until they go through it themselves, my whole life was consumed with being close to a toilet (preferably mine as I knew it was cleaned regularly).

I will sort this today. Thank you everyone.

This is in my employee handbook.

I was signed off until my official maternity leave date due to the Hyperemesis.

Here’s an idea - why don’t we start a campaign about HG affecting Maternity pay with the Princess of Wales (a known HG sufferer) as patron?

That looks perfectly standard. Unfortunately you did not meet the minimum earnings level during the assessed period.