Can anyone help please? Re: maternity allowance and councillor's allowance

[LoopyLoopsBettyBoops]

I'm not sure if this is in the right place, but I would really appreciate any advice if anyone can help...

I am currently in receipt of Maternity Allowance (Full amount of £124 (I think) per week) eligible due to being self employed.

I have just been elected as a district councillor. I therefore am allowed an allowance for this (of about £4000/year, or £77 per week).

I spoke to the people at MA a while ago, who were very unsure but came back to tell me that CA does affect MA eligibility. They weren't sure, but thought it would stop me from receiving any, as it doesn't fit in with the concept of 10 KIT days (which I need anyway for my self-employed business).

Councillorship is for 4 years. How can it be possible for this payment to put a stop to Maternity Allowance?

I am willing to waive the CA, but apparently this won't make any difference as it is available to me.

I am now in the position of having to decide whether to reject the councillorship (after all the effort of getting elected, letting down my team, not doing the 'voluntary' position that I was looking forward to, and won't have another opportunity again to do for 4 years)

or losing over a third of my income, which I really can't afford to do. What can I do?

Maternity leave from council is simply the right to miss meetings. You still receive the allowance as it is to cover costs and is not meant to be a salary.

Can anyone help please? Thanks. :)

You are allowed to work for up to 10 days without it affecting your MA, so make sure that you only attend meetings on 10 days while you are receiving MA - pick your meetings carefully, claim maternity leave from the rest and only read papers, answer correspondence etc. on days you are attending meetings.

Beware that some people may not be happy with the state paying you money both to be a councillor and to be on maternity leave.

I can't possibly only attend 10 meetings, the induction period has more than that!

I think I'm just going to have to forgo the maternity allowance. But it's a 4 year term of office, I don't understand how it can work out like this, it's not as if you can just stop being a councillor for a few months. This must have occurred before, surely?

I don't understand. I am being penalised for trying to do something good for the community. :(

OK, you don't have to 'forgo the maternity allowance', but some of it may be disallowed.

Tell DWP the days you intend to work. As long as this is no more than 3 days each week, only part of the MA should be disallowed: 1/7th of the weekly rate for each day that you work, although the first 10 days should be paid. So the maximum amount you should lose is £55.17 a week.

Now I am not an expert in benefit law, but it seems to me that it would be possible to challenge the interpretation of the payments from the Council as remuneration for employment so that you don't lose anything, but you would need an expert in benefit law to advise you on this. You might also find help from the appropriate councillor's association referred to in the guides you can download here.

Oh, that makes a lot more sense, thank you. It's not that I want paying for both, but that the councillor's allowance simply isn't enough to live on. Allowing part of it would make a lot more sense.

Thank yo for all your help. I'm still waiting for the DWP to get back to me, as it would appear that they aren't very sure of the situation either.

Many thanks. :)

Unfortunately, they have called back and confirmed that after the 10 KIT days, and meetings would constitute a return to work, therefore I'd lose any MA.

Stupid, stupid system.

The only things I can do is either lose the MA or get a leave of absence from council. Stupidly, I can still receive the councillor allowance in full, I just can't do any work. Sounds ideal, but I really want to do what I've been elected to do!

Stupid, stupid system!

Call them back, and point them to section 62602 in Chapter 62 of their own Decision Makers Guide where it says (with my emphasis):

"where the estimate [of days worked during the MA period] is on average three days a week or less, after the first ten days a woman should be disqualified for MA only for the estimated number of days she has worked during the period of work within the MAP"

Oooh you're good, thank you! :)