Maternity allowance recent experience/timeframe

[emidob]

Hey everyone, hope I’m posting this in the right place.
I’m interested to know about the procedure for Maternity Allowance application particularly from someone with recent experience, who was asked to pay NI contributions in order to get the standard rate. I’m curious to know how long it took for MA to check and process after you have paid NI. On my letter it said it could take up 22 days for them to amend the amount I’m getting but I’m curious to know how long it took for others recently. I have paid mine last week and my next payment is due soon and I’m wondering about the chances that I would get the higher amount already or just the £27 basic rate.
Also am I correct in assuming that once they amend the amount I’m eligible to get, they will backdate it to when I started getting the payments?
Many Thanks,
Emi

Who's paying the NI contributions and for what dates?

Yes they backdate.

Sorry I don’t quite understand your question…I’m paying the NI contributions of course… doesn’t really matter what dates. When you apply for Maternity Allowance as a self employed person, you get sent a letter by HMRC to pay NI contributions that are necessary for you to get full amount of MA… (as normally we only pay NI once a year when we do our tax return.)If you decide not to pay the required NI then you only get £27/week. If you pay it, then you get the full amount which is £156/ week. This has already happened for me (meaning I got the letter telling me what to pay and I have already paid.)What I want to know now is how long did it then take (for others who were in the same situation recently) to then get awarded the higher amount of MA.