Maternity pay - spread over the year?

[Macaroons]

My company offers 6 months full pay maternity benefit, which is very generous and im thankful for that. Because of my due date it means I'll be paid almost my full annual pay in 2012/13 tax year, and will be on SMP / unpaid leave for part of 2013/14 tax year. I'm on the higher tax rate and if I could spread the maternity pay over the 12 months I'll probably pay less tax overall. So I suggested this to HR (as this also makes more sense cash flow-wise for the company as they would be delaying half of the payment by half a year.) but the HR colleague looked very shocked that I suggest such a thing, as if it's completely out of line and should never have been suggested. I thought I read something about it on MN, so was just wondering if this is a legal and feasible arrangement in the UK. Or am I being silly?

They have to pay you 90% for the first six weeks and the SMP (just over £100 a week). But the rest comes from your employer so could be flexible if they want it to be.

I'm a teacher and our LEA offers this as an option so I can't see why this would be a problem.

I work in the NHS, and if I choose to I can spread my maternity pay throughout my maternity leave - I get 8 weeks full pay, then 18 weeks half pay + SMP, then 13 weeks SMP, then unpaid leave for the last 13 weeks (I'll go back after 9 months to avoid a period of no pay, it's just not financially an option for us), but if I chose to they would work out the average monthly pay and pay me this. It is a legal request but I'm not sure if your employer are legally obliged to offer it.

Can you not just work out what it equates to spread out over the year and stash the excess in the first 6 months into savings, then draw on that in the second 6 months. That's what I did

But black tea, that misses the tax advantage of deferring the income into the next tax year.

Ah I see, didn't think about the tax.

I work in the public sector and was able to split my maternity pay into 12 equal instalments. It is definitely possible but am not sure if it's something your employers are required to offer.

Thanks all for your replies! I know the company is not obliged to offer it, at least now I know I'm not being crazy / out of my mind for making that suggestion.

As for next steps, I'm not sure if it's worth emailing the head of HR for making that suggestion or not... on one hand there's no harm trying (as it means tax saving for me, and the company would also benefit from delaying the cashflow - a win-win solution!) on the other hand it makes me appear to be a trouble-maker... hmmm

They may turn you down, I know where I work(public sector) they wouldn't because their payroll system isn't configured to accommodate 12 equal payments for maternity. They wont offer to do it manually(which is possible) because of staff time resource used, offer it to one person & they'd have to give everyone the option. which could result in a lot of extra data entry every month rather than just putting the dates in once & letting the system do the rest.