paying back part of my maternity pay???

[Eva1977]

Hi! I am new here and 20 weeks pregnant with our first child. I am a school teacher, and when I told the headteacher that I was pregnant he advised me to put aside part of the maternity pay - in case I decided not to return to work after maternity leave. That came as a surprise to me as I was not aware that I might have to pay part of the money back if I do not return to work, can anybody give me some more information - whether this is rally the case, and if so how much I would need to pay back? Thank you!!

Hi eva - from what i understand as long as you have been employed for a certain amount of time (15 weeks at a certain stage?) then you are entitled to smp. This you will not have to pay back and equates to around £100 per week roughly (might have gone up?). Any other money paid to you is paid to you by your employer and this is the money you would have to pay back if you did not return. However it is also worth remembering that if you go back to work for 3 months (part or full time) you will not pay back any money. HTH - have a look at direct gov site for all the right info.

Eva, you have to distinguish between your statutory maternity pay, which is non-refundable, and any extra maternity pay which might be in your contract, which they can make you pay back. I had the same problem as you, and chose to receive only SMP even though I was entitled to half my salary for 6 months, because I knew I would have had to pay this back with interest if I decided not to come back.

Thank you for the quick replies!I think what I would be getting is for the first 6 weeks 90% of my salary, and then the £117 per week, or whatever it is at the moment.

Agree that if you're not getting anything above the statutory minimum then you don't have to pay anything back. If you get extra from your employer then you would have to pay that back if you didn't return and work at least a certain number of months (details would be in your terms and conditions).

Worth noting if you decide not to return (and have accepted AMP) you may also have to pay back your employers NI contributions on top of any 'extra' AMP - means you will pay back more than you received ! I am a teacher and this was the case so I returned for the minimum 12 weeks to avoid paying back. We have three options - take just SMP, take SMP and AMP or just take SMP and receive a lump sum of the AMP entitled to if do decide to go back.

thank you very much for all the useful advice. I have now contacted HR who will send out an info pack with the different options - so hopefully I'll know more soon.
Yes, you are right Belgianbun, teaching is hard when pregnant - one can only smile at the suggestions to take regular breaks, put feet up and relax a bit
I am also so exhausted every evening that I am getting no work done whatsoever - which then means that I have to use the breaks that we do get for preparations etc...Nevermind, it's all worth it!!! And half term hols are here, so all is good!