Maternity pay/allowance if on payroll as casual worker and also self employed?

[perrinelli]

I work in my field independently on a self employed basis but also do work for a local authority and am on their payroll as a casual worker - amount of work varies and I submit timesheet each month.

I probably average about £400pm from the casual employment and about £600 from my self employed stuff but it does vary massively. Does anyone know what I might get in terms of mat pay? I've been doing both roles for about 18 months.

Your employer will need to work out your average gross weekly earnings over a period of at least 8 weeks up until your last payday before the 15th week before the week in which your due date falls (phew!). If that is more than £111, you will be entitled to SMP. If not, you will be entitled to MA based on your self-employment (you can't get both).

If as a self-employed person you've been paying class 2 NI contributions you should qualify for MA. If you've been doing your casual work for 26 weeks by the end of your 15th week of pregnancy then you should qualify for SMP. You would need to work out which applies as you can only get MA or SMP not both.

Oh right, sounds complicated! I have a bit of control over how much work I do for each role and how I space it out. Is there a particular period of time when I should try to do as much as possible for one role or the other?
I wonder as a casual whether I'd get the usual mat package from the local authority. When I was permanently employed there for my previous mat leaves I got stuff on top of statutory like 90% for a few weeks then 50%.

No idea about the additional package. That might make all the difference to the following argument.

If it's just SMP, in your shoes I'd be making sure I didn't qualify.

SMP is 6 weeks at 90% of your average earnings (averaged over those 8 or so weeks), then the lower of 90% and £140ish per week. If you are earning just over £111, you will get 90% of that i.e. £100 ish for all 39 weeks.

Assuming you are up to date with your NI, MA will be a flat rate of £140ish for all 39 weeks.

So, you need to make sure you get paid an average of less than £111 in the relevent weeks. They have to average over at least 8 weeks, and they have to end before the qualifying week (25th week of pregnancy). So you need to make sure you earn less than £111 per week from you employment from week 12 or so until week 25.