Maternity pay spread over 12 months. Calling payroll/HR experts or anyone!?!

[Hopelass]

Hi everyone
I hope I'm posting in the right place. I started mat leave a month ago. I work for the NHS and am taking 12 months off. This is normally split into 8 weeks full pay, 18 weeks half pay & SMP, 13 weeks SMP and then 13 weeks no pay. I am very lucky I know. I asked for this to be spread across the 12 months as I was informed this was something they can do. In my pay slip however this month was a quite a bit less pay than I expected.

I have done a quick Google search and found that someone else had the same problem and was informed by payroll that their monthly payment would go up after the first 8 weeks once SMP kicked in. Does anyone know if this sounds right?

I would call HR/payroll but they are notoriously bad at communicating so I thought I'd try picking your brains here first!!

TIA for any help you are able to offer.........

Im hoping to do this too so watching with interest.

Well, they can only split the omp (the bit the trust pays on top of the smp) across the 12 months, not the smp itself. So based on what they're saying the first 8 weeks is an average of your omp (which is obviously low).

But I thought that whilst you receive 8 weeks full pay, included in that is 6 weeks smp at 90% so if anything you should have more this month!

Sorry I haven't helped, but if anyone else is thinking of doing this, don't. It much better to save the money yourself and spend as you need because then you can work it all out properly!

Not in NHS, but the company i worked for when on mat leave had a similar deal. Every month I got a different amount of money, every month I phoned payroll to question it and every month it turned out they had screwed something up.It was a total PITA.

I did at least end up with the right amount of mat pay overall, but it was rather difficult to budget! I can't remember all the details ( they were very boring) but a large part of it was to do with the qualifying week (25th week of preg IIRC) and the fact that my pay had been a bit weird that month for other reasons.

You have my sympathy, best of luck sorting it out.

Bugger. Thanks for your replies, it's not looking good is it? I'm going to have to try and call payroll tomorrow...........

I also work for NHS but am just getting it as described & squirreled a load away the first 2 months. I think you are currently getting 1/12 of your entitlement for OMP. When SMP kicks in you will get that in addition until the last 3 months when you'll go back 1/12 OMP.

Ooh thanks Splatt that is exactly what I was hoping would be the case. You have certainly put my mind at ease a bit esp if I can't contact payroll today which is likely...... thanks again