Statutory maternity Pay- Employer says cannot pay

[user1479748167]

Statutory maternity Pay- Employer says cannot pay

Hi,

I joined my current company in mid of March. My baby’s due date is 15/11/2016. I informed my employer about the pregnancy in June. I was verbally assured and informed that I would get 100% SMP. I also received the written confirmation letter in October confirming my maternity leave start date as nov and I would get 100% SMP.

I planned all my finance based on the payment that I would get during my maternity leave.

Suddenly, I received one more letter on my due date and say that I am no longer eligible for the maternity pay as per government policy. I read the government rules and just came to that I am not eligible. My company says that I should have joined the company in February to receive the full payment.

I clearly see that my company violated two government rules.

“ …………..Your employer must confirm within 28 days how much SMP you’ll get and when it will start and stop.
If they decide you’re not eligible, they must give you form SMP1 within 7 days of making their decision and explain why…………..”

If I knew this before, I wouldn’t have joined this company. I wouldn’t have put more hardwork and weekend work for this company.

Is there anyway to get reasonable pay during my maternity leave?. I don’t think I can live on allowance of 120GBP/week. Do you think that I got strong case to request for the maternity pay?

Thank you,
Julie

You're a bit muddled in your posts. Perhaps not in your understanding, just in the way you've written?

SMP - you basically can't be pregnant before you start. If you were, you don't qualify. Legally. Nothing your employer can do to change that.

Maternity Allowance is different and runs on combined working history. As long as you have worked 26 out of the 66 weeks before the baby is due, you qualify.

Occupational schemes normally pay full pay for X weeks but state that they will deduct the amount of SMP from the full pay so you don't get more than full pay.

Actually now wondering if you are my old school 'chum' who mocked me for getting a job in 'servitude to the masses' while you were in 'the city' with all the great bonuses...

Is the problem that you're getting confused about SMP? It sounds like the company are giving you SMP. They're not giving you enhanced mat pay.

When did you start your maternity leave?

OP,

Legally to qualify for statutory maternity pay which is 90% of pay for 6 weeks and then 32 weeks at £139 per week then you would have needed to have joined your organisation at the beginning of February. Therefore you are not eligible for SMP.

You said you can't find anything in your documents about Enhanced Maternity Pay which is what you seem to be talking about, however, you mentioned you know you are eligible for it on completion of probation... how do you know this if you 'claim' not to be able to find anything in documents about maternity pay?

By the way, Mat pay info usually isn't in an offer letter but will be found in an employee handbook or on your companies intranet.

How have you lost 11 weeks pay? When did you start mat leave? As soon as you gave them your MatB1?

Everything about your story makes no sense, I would suggest getting your facts right and discussing with HR again before you pursue a legal route as you don't seem to understand the whole maternity pay issue.

Don't you have to be with a company x amount of time before you qualify for SMP?
Also, they might have given you a permanent job but it is highly unlikely that there wasn't some kind of probation period attached to it. This is common practice, unless, of course you had a temporary contract for some time and than got a permanent one... in which case you are right to question the whole thing!

It seems like you aren't differentiating between SMP and EMP, which is making your post a bit confusing. You mention verbal confirmation but what does your employee handbook say? Also, what happened when you gave in your MATB1 form? Normally the company should then confirm your dates and maternity allowances back to you in writing?

SMP isn't 6 months full pay. I wish it was.

Also going back to your OP you say that you told them you were pregnant in June and if you'd known about the SMP you wouldn't have joined, like it's their fault, but you joined back in March when they didn't know you were pregnant so how could they tell you?

Yeah, I'm totally confused too.

• SMP is from the government through the employer. You can't be pregnant when you join a company to qualify for this.
• EMP is the amount an employer might 'top up' the maternity pay. In your case the employer offers 100% salary for 6 months. Most companies have the same rules for this as the government do for SMP so I'd be surprised if your employer didn't.
• you say your maternity leave starts in November and due date is 15/11. How have you missed out on 11 weeks SMP? It's still November.

There are so many responses.

I learned from your responses that EMP/OMP is different from SMP. However, I dont see EMP/OMP any where in the document, or any company document. I can see only five lines in offer letter talking about SMP(6 months pay) , not even in handbook, not even in internal website. I am not arguing about getting 6 months pay here.

I had a detailed discussion with HR in sep/oct about all benefits around SMP( you can call it as EMP/OMP). They gave me the signed letter explaining 6 months pay. As per government law, if they are rejecting the pay, they should have given the notice within 7 days. It would have enabled me to apply for maternity allowance. I dont think i will be walking to job centre plus and applying for allowance at this time.

About 11 weeks, its not a matter of concern for my company when I am applying for allowance/leave. They just need 28 days notice before the maternity leave as per law. If they are giving in last minute, it adds to two weeks overhead of processing as well. I think they need to pay something for those weeks that I miss allowances.

please go and get some proper advice. Not legal advice. You don't need that, you just need to find out your position. Every further post you are making is muddying the waters further

No, we can't call SMP OMP/EMP because they are not the same thing OP! Please read the responses. You are not eligible for SMP, it's not the company's decision it's a basic point in law. So, because you're not eligible for SMP then they CAN'T give you the OMP/EMP package they discussed as it's supposed to top up SMP. It would only be policy for them to 'reject' their offer of the top up within a time limit if you were actually eligible for the SMP to which it relates in the first place.

It's like trying to obtain sick pay without doing the qualifying days first, and it's really not their responsibility to inform you of the law regarding SMP.

You need to apply for the maternity grant, it's basically the same as SMP. EMP/OMP only exist in some companies, most don't offer anything in top of SMP which is why the 9 months is the standard amount of time off.

I agree that you need to sit down with someone knowledgable with all your documentation and try and get to the bottom of this. Its confusing and you sound confused.

I also think there is some confusion here, when you start to say " you can call it" then muddle two very different things it would then appear this is where the confusion lies,

I'd speak to hr again and try to maybe get a better handle on it.

@ThirdTimeLuck
Your message makes sense.

Do you have any comment on the rules. What if they violate?

"Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP)
Tell your employer you want to stop work to have a baby and the day you want your SMP to start. You must give them at least 28 days’ notice (in writing if they ask for it) and proof that you’re pregnant.

Your employer must confirm within 28 days how much SMP you’ll get and when it will start and stop.

If they decide you’re not eligible, they must give you form SMP1 within 7 days of making their decision and explain why.
"

I'm really confused! Is baby here...? I have it as 21/11 today so baby was due last week, are you still pg?? You don't want to confront work but will raise a grievance? If that's not confrontational I don't know what is, esp when work won't know its coming!

Can you post here details of

-what your offer letter says that made you think you were entitled to 6 months full pay

-what the letter you received from HR after meeting with them in Sept/Oct says about maternity pay

-when you gave them your MATB1 form

OP it isn't about what we call it, they are totally different things and paid by totally different people. SMP means statutory maternity pay. This is a standard government allowance. It is 6 weeks at 90% of your pay then 33 weeks at £140 a week. It has nothing to do with your employer - it is set by the government and your employer just does the paperwork. You are not eligible for this as you have not worked for your employer long enough. Although it is set by the government they require you to have been in work for a set number of weeks prior to your pregnancy, which you have not.

EMP is Enhanced Maternity Pay. This is an optional package offered by your employer, at the discretion of the employer. If you haven't been there long enough to qualify for SMP it is highly unlikely you will qualify for the company's own maternity scheme. My company requires 6 months' service prior to you announcing the pregnancy. Some require 2 years' service. 6 months at full pay would be EMP as it is a benefit offered by your employer. This wouldn't be an 'opt out' service ie up to them to say somewhere in writing you can't have it, but something that would need to have been confirmed in writing as a benefit proving you were being offered it. It would have been included in the confirmation letter you got after your MATB1 if they were offering enhanced pay.

You also mention not having a probation period as you were offered a permanent job- I think you need to check your original employment contract again as you may well have made a mistake here - the two are not mutually exclusive and most employers would still require a probationary period (usually 6 months) even for a permanent job.

The proof is your MATB1. Until you have that any discussion is informal.

Yes they've made a mistake by not giving you the form within 7 days but that's hardly a reason for you to think they now owe you SMP and their enhanced package - they don't pay you the SMP it comes from the government and without the proof in the MAT1B they can't get it for you. Trying to get them to pay you, based on a technicality, won't change the facts.

Yes they should have given you the form, but you have to take some responsibility here - the stipulations are pretty clear. You need to ring HMRC and sort it out.

"I lost 11 weeks of maternity allowance so far. "

I don't understand this. If you went on leave 11 weeks before due date, how were you having discussions with HR in October?

Are you sure your offer letter refers to SMP as full pay for six months, rather than "maternity pay" or similar? As others have said, that's not statutory as that refers to the government mandated amount.

You haven't lost anything yet, let alone 11 weeks. Latest maternity leave starts is edd which was only last week. Have you had the baby? It sounds as if whoever wrote to you either did so in general terms or made a mistake. either way that doesn't entitle you now. Submitting your matb1 form around 26 th week triggers the process. In the absence of anything specific on your intranet/handbook the statutory scheme applies. Based on the dates you have given ( are they correct?) you wouldn't get Smp but might get MA if you had worked for long enough in the last few years. When did you go on ml?

You are confusing the government's smp with the enhanced top up from hour employer.

The government rules on smp - which are readily available to anyone - are

Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP)
To qualify for SMP you must:

earn on average at least £112 a week
give the correct notice
give proof you’re pregnant
have worked for your employer continuously for at least 26 weeks up to the ‘qualifying week’ - the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth

Employer agreed to pay:

I called ACAS , Maternity dispute team and numerous solicitors. They said that I am eligible to receive the payment. I went back with the response. In my current job, they mentioned the qualification period in the contract. But, My company didn’t define the qualification period in anywhere under the signed documents. Moreover, the false hope they gave me earlier indirectly influenced my working hours and my spending habits. Hence, I sent the letter to my company stating the above reasons. They agreed to pay only for the 6 months pay-SMP. As per HMRC, first 6 months full pay don’t come under them. My company is not going to pay SMP. I am fine with that. Thank you for your suggestions. All your suggestions helped me to put a strong case. Good thing is my manager supported me and went against my HR and Payroll department. This is really positive sign. I am going to contribute more for my team.

For those not aware of Terms and conditions in the contract.
My previous job:
For those with a year 's service, 6 months full pay, then statutory maternity pay (SMP) for 13 weeks. For those with between six months' and a year's service, 3 months fully paid leave followed by 21 weeks' SMP.

My current Job:
6 months full pay, then statutory maternity pay (SMP) for 13 weeks after qualification period.

Thank you for your responses