Can someone explains my maternity policy to me please?

[DandyMott]

My works policy states as follows;

? 100% of a weeks pay for the first 6 weeks followed by
? 33 weeks statutory maternity pay at the lower rate, plus
12 weeks half pay during the remaining 20 weeks of OML (provided
this and SMP do not exceed full pay). This can be paid as follows:

• 12 weeks at half pay
• 20 weeks at 3/10th of pay
• paid in full when the employee returns to work at the end of maternity

leave Note: The distribution of the payment should be agreed with the employee.

I work part time earning £750 a month, does this mean if I take the 20 weeks at 3/10ths pay I will get the SMP plus the additional to make it up to my full wage. Or does it mean that as the 3/10ths plus SMP exceed my weekly earnings that I will only receive SMP.

Does that make sense?!

Can someone explain if I've read it correctly? Thanks!

I'm not expert but I found the info on the GOV website fairly clear so I'll have a crack at this.

First, I make your weekly wage 173 (750 x 12 / 52) - let's call that W.

The statutory entitlement is:
First 6 weeks - 90% of W per week
Next 33 weeks - 138 pw (you get this because it's lower than 90% of W, that's the "lower rate" referred to in your OP).

Your employer is adding to that:
First 6 weeks - the other 10% of W pw
Next 12 weeks - 50% of W pw as long as the total you receive does not exceed W

An alternative they are offering is that those 12 weeks are spread over 20: 50% of W x 12 / 20 works at 30% of W (or 3/10 of W), paid on top of the stat entitlement.

However, you are hit by the limit of not receiving more than W in total during those 12 weeks, ie 50% of W added to 138 would take you to more than W.

It's not spelt out what happens if you hit the limit, but I imagine a reasonable and fair policy would be to restrict you to your weekly wage in those 12 weeks. So they would pay you 138 + 35 during those 12 weeks (to get you up to W ie 173). I assume also they would still offer the alternative of spreading that extra over 20 weeks, ie 35 x 12 / 20 = 21pw paid on top of the 138pw for 20 weeks.

Please check my arithmetic (I've rounded to nearest so it's not exact) before taking this as absolutely correct.

Somehow all my pound signs look like this: , which is not a pound symbol on my screen.

Anyway, I'm glad that was helpful, OP, I would hate to have wasted my time writing all that up!