What's your entitlement to maternity pay?

[MaybeMabel]

Just exploring the teacher's maternity pay and I was wondering how other sectors compare. Mine is:

2 weeks full pay
4 weeks 90%
12 weeks 50%
then on to SMP

(that's for teachers employed without break for over 1 year and 26 weeks (prior to being 25 weeks pregnant) in their current school, otherwise it's SMP of £135)

Citydweller thank you. A llot of the articles that I read about work/life balance etc seem to be from American publications and I was interested to be able to put those in context with the maternity provision.

I work in the media. I get the statutory minimum, I think - 6 weeks at 90%, then SMP till 9 months.

Can't imagine how much less financially stressful maternity leave must be if you get 6 months full pay. Sadly that will never happen at my employer.

Private sector consultancy:
6 weeks 90%
6 weeks full pay
Then SMP up to 39 weeks

I'm shocked at how generous maternity provision is for public sector workers. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't think it's deserved, but it seems like government says in one breath that the smp rate they've set is adequate for pregnant women to live on and in the next - when it comes to their own workers - that it isn't? They should make their mind up and either all public sector workers should get basic smp or they should raise the rate of smp to bring everyone else in line with what they think is fair!

I'm freelance/self employed so I get maternity allowance which is £135 for 33 weeks. But considering I earn minimum wage (i.e. the 90% wouldn't be that much more) this means I'm actually better off than on smp as it's not taxed and ni credits are free.

fluffy it's not all public sector though. I always make a point of posting on these threads as people assume I get a good deal working for the council.

Yup fluffy it's so variable though that it's hard to generalise. In the main, my public sector friends are better off on maternity leave but I guess that's the reward for doing a job that's publicly necessary (unlike mine).

On the other hand, my friend worked in HR for a bank and got a year on full pay. Which is amazing.

Her best friend worked for one of the largest, richest companies in the world and got only the stat minimum so it's just so variable.

No I know, sorry, didn't mean to imply it was across the board - Dh is a nurse and only gets statutory paternity leave/pay

I'm teaching privately in Germany and get 14 weeks full pay from school.

I then get up to 12 months at 67% from the government, although it's not called maternity pay.

Statutory mat pay is something different, but I don't have entitlement to it.

Fluffy I wonder if there are more women in the public sector, making decent paid maternity leave more necessary in order to recruit and retain? Or, maybe it's the other way round and generous maternity provision means that more women choose the public sector? I didn't choose it for maternity leave reasons but did for work/life balance reasons (accepting a lower salary than in the private sector) and this is a huge generalisation but sometimes the public sector can be more ready to be family-friendly so perhaps the maternity leave is part of it.

As statutory maternity pay is effectively paid by the state by way of offsets by the employer I do see some logic in the government thinking "we're prepared to pay this much from the public purse for all pregnant employees and to leave it to employers to top up with company pay as they wish, depending on how they wish to help their pregnant employees", and for the government to decide for its own reasons that it's one of those employers that wants to pay more to its employees. Short of legislating for employers to pay a certain amount of company pay as additional maternity pay (which i think would be no bad thing but I would imagine would be deeply unpopular with employers not least because employers also have the additional cost of paying for someone to do the work of the person on maternity leave) or for more money from the public purse to be spent on it, it's not easy to see what could be done. I do hope that more employers will realise the value in making it worthwhile for women to work for them and to return to work after their maternity leave.

I think I work for the Co pay with the best maternity pay - 52 weeks full basic pay & no penalties if you don't return/return to work part time.

second a lot of the companies with best pay seem to be mainly male workforce ( so it doesn't cost them a lot). Public sector in a lot of areas has a lower salary so needs to make it up elsewhere. Though my bit doesn't seem to care

poogles can I be nosy and ask who ?

poogles that's excellent. Do women tend to take it all? I ask because I have friends who swear that a year can be too long and can disengage you and knock your confidence, but I can imagine that if a company that offers a year on full pay is also one that would support women as they re-entered the workplace.

OP I'm a lecturer at a Uni and I get exactly the same as you.I was shocked because presumed it would be 6 months full pay.

My friend works for a big mobile phone company and gets six months full pay and then 50% plus SMP. Another works for a law firm and gets 30 weeks full pay!

Think it's luck of draw on private v public sector.

I work for a large law firm and get 18 weeks full pay, 22 weeks statutory and 12 weeks at no pay.

My sister lives in America and was allowed three months off work which I believe was unpaid. She had tried to time it so that the end of the three months coincided with the start of the school summer holidays of the school where she worked but my niece had other ideas and arrived 5 weeks early.

My employer (private sector) offers statutory as standard. I asked to negotiate and have now been offered 50% for 20 weeks, repayable if I don't return to work.

This isn't loads extra (as is not on top of SMP) but is a massive weight off my shoulders as was worried how we'd cope. I'd advise anyone in private sector to ask if there's any room for negotiation, especially if you've done several years service and plan to return.

I do think that as their is a 'National Minimum Wage' and EBF is recommened and favoured by the govt. then the statutory minimum for maternity everywhere in UK should be six months at minimun wage. What companies offered above and beyond that would be up to them.

MaybeMabel- I teach too and after speaking to HR my impression was that for the 12 weeks at 50% you get statuary on TOP of that too.

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (although will be v.sad as just worked out how long I can afford to stay off for based on that )!

I work for Ford, so yes, mainly male workforce & not as expensive as it would seem. Women do tend to take it all but I agree with the person who said it can be too much. With DS1, I would have gone back to work earlier but it wasn't financially viable - i got paid the same if I went back but would have had to pay child are. Some women run their maternity leaves back to back (you still get all your holidays to take at the end of the year!). There are lots of complaints that actually you get 57 weeks paid with holidays!

There are definitely differences in public sector maternity pay provision. NHS maternity pay seems generous until you then realise that civil service workers get 6 or 9 months full pay. Think it should be standard across the public sector but not a race to the bottom as is so often the case. There are certainly some private companies offering very generous provision - would have loved 12 months full pay!

I do a non teaching head of year role at a secondary school so am classed as support staff. We get a different (read less generous) maternity package than the teachers who i work with.
Saying that when I did find out my entitlements I was pleased and it does now mean I can afford to take the full year.
6 weeks 90%
12 weeks half plus SMP
26 SMP

My friends in the public sector get crap maternity provision - either statutory or just above (I.e. 100% for 6 weeks instead of 90% for 6 weeks). They tend to work for local authorities (councils).

I understand the civil service and NHS workers get a better deal but as a former public sector worker, I know the organisation you work for gets re-jigged frequently and new workers generally get a crapper deal than those TUPE-d across - be that maternity rights, pensions etc.

Having said that, my SIL works for a private sector company and only gets statutory as well.

I live in the Netherlands and everyone here gets the same: 16 weeks on full pay. You can start your ML 6 weeks before your EDD, but you MUST start it at least 4 weeks before your EDD (in other words you are not allowed to work; not taking your ML is not an option). Then you get paid for 12 weeks from when your baby is actually born. In other words if your baby is 2 weeks late, you get another 12 weeks from the date of birth. So some people get a bit more than 16 weeks depending on when their baby is born.

If you are self-employed (like me) then the same rules apply but you only get minimum wage. Still a lot better than nothing mind you .

I work for the NHS and will be getting the standard 6 weeks at 90% of pay then SMP.

Kidcrayols that's was I get as a teaching member of staff...