maternity allowance

[MummyToToby]

does anyone know if holiday pay counts towards your earnings?

mine did

Mine did as well. There is a web site:

www.greatplacetowork.gov.uk/er/matleafr.htm

Which might help you.

jersey and boobylicious- was that for smp or ma though?

Yes, they take the average of your 13 highest weeks over whatever period it is, so if a week of hol pay is one of those highest thats what they'll take. Hope that makes sense...

maternity pay (if you were paid it for a previous pregnancy during the 66 week test period), back pay, bonuses, commission, holiday pay and advance payments are all included as part of your gross earnings. there are a few other things that are also part of gross earnings but i forget what they are. this website helped me: maternity allowance guide

oh and where tips or gratuities are concerned, the following count towards gross earnings:

• if the customer paid a tip to you by their credit card or cheque, so it then has to be paid to you by your employer with your wages.

• if all the employees tips are pooled together and then shared out by the employer.

the only time tips are not included in gross earnings is if they were paid as cash directly from the customer to the employee and that employee gets to keep it all for themselves.

HTH

Does anybody know roughly how long you need to be with a company before your allowed maternity pay. Ive just started a new job then a few weeks later found out i was pg.

All pregnant employees are entitled to 26 weeks "ordinary maternity leave" (OML) no matter how short their length of service. If you have 26 weeks' service by the 14th week before the week in which your baby's due (ie employed for 6 months as at 26 weeks pregnancy (approx)), you get an additional 26 weeks "additional maternity leave". sounds like you might not qualify for AML

OML is paid but AML is not. During OML, for the first 6 weeks you will get 90% of your average weekly earnings and for the next 20 weeks you get approx £108 a week (or, if less, 90% of your average weekly earnings).

There's a useful website that will calculate your entitlements, let you know when your maternity leave can start etc - I will take a look and post the webpage.

hope that helps.

Following on from my last message, if you go to this website it will work out all your entitlements and give you a personalised calendar - clever!

tiger.direct.gov.uk/cgi-bin/maternity.cgi

Also, I forgot to add that there are some changes to maternity leave that are due to come into place for those whose babies' expected week of childbirth starts on or after 1 April. (The "expected week of childbirth" starts at midnight on the Saturday/Sunday before your actual due date) If this applies to you:

• you will be entitled to 52 weeks maternity leave, no matter how long (or short) your length of employment (so EVERYONE will be entitled to 52 weeks' leave - hurrah);

• maternity pay period is increased from 26 weeks to 39 weeks (ie 9 months). I presume payment will remain at 90% for 6 weeks and the next 33 weeks at the statutory rate of approx £108 a week (or 90% of weekly earnings if this is less than £108).

So good news all round...

not if your dd is 13 march though! aaargh. I'll be bitter about that missed pay for the whole 3 months now!

Thanks so much for that 510fudge thats really kind of you to reply.....x.x Its been very usefull