Return from maternity leave and furlough pay

[Bingbangbingbangbong]

I have been on maternity leave since October and had planned to return to work on Monday.

Due to the coronavirus, the company I work for has had to stop 95% of its activity and has furloughed most of the staff. I had been told last week that I would be furloughed upon the end of my mat leave also, but now have been told differently.

Essentially, my HR dept have said that the 80% calculation is based on your actual salary in Feb 2020, so if i were furloughed, it would be on 80% of my statutory maternity pay.

Surely that cannot be correct?? Similarly, if someone was on stat sick pay during Feb, then under my company's interpretation, they would be furloughed on stat sick pay rather than their actual contracted salary??

It seems utterly bizzare and very discriminatory. Does anyone have any advice on how I should proceed?

SMP is not your actual salary. Your salary is your normal rate of pay. Tell them to consult HMRC.

See that is exactly what I thought, but our HR dept is being incredibly unhelpful (we are under the umbrella of a much larger company who apparently are overseeing our furloughing situation and providing the legal input). The larger company are insisting on the ‘it is based on your Feb pay, so that is that’ attitude.

I will try my best to get hold of HMRC to clarify, but understandably their lines are chok-a-bloc at the moment. I’m hoping in the meantime they are also trying to find some official clarification themselves

It’s so difficult without any concrete advice in the gov guidelines. I feel like I may have a rather large fight on my hands, but it’s all on very flimsy, non specified, ground

As @prh47bridge said, the government guidelines state that employers "will receive a grant from HMRC to cover the lower of 80% of an employee’s regular wage or £2,500 per month..."

This should be the wage you would have received upon return from maternity leave, but for the furlough.

You're right that the govt guidance isn't explicit on the point, but any other interpretation would mean that you suffered a detriment because of your maternity leave. And that's not allowed.

It should be based on the HIGHER of:

• your wage for the equivalent month last year (April 2019)
• your average monthly wage for the last year.

In your case probably the former as long as you’ve been employed for a year by them. What they are saying sounds wrong to me and I have read all the legislation as was involved in furloughing a staff member this week.

It should be based on the HIGHER of

No, that is the rule for employees whose pay varies, e.g. because they are paid an hourly rate and work a different number of hours each month depending on demand. The OP doesn't fall into that category. It should be based on her actual salary on 28th February. The fact that she wasn't receiving her actual salary is irrelevant.

Possibly - our staff are on hourly rates and pay varies. But in that case, op should definitely be paid 80% of her usual salary (not SMP) as otherwise surely it could be a case of maternity discrimination.

Thank you all for helping and reassuring me I wasn't the only one thinking it was ridiculous!!

I was able to do some research over the weekend and have found some resources that will hopefully clarify what I am actually entitled to (and hopefully help anyone finding themselves in similar circumstance)

maternityaction.org.uk/covidmaternityfaqs/
workingfamilies.org.uk/articles/coronavirus-furlough/
twitter.com/workingfamUK/status/1244934912152686592

The third link from the HMRC twitter should do the trick in confirming that my furlough pay should be calculated in the same way an employee who's pay varies.

May treat myself to a nice celebratory gin in the sunshine and hopefully get it all confirmed by HR tomorrow!