Can my boss deny mat leave

[Andysgirl15]

I'm 21w3d and I'm insanely bored in my job. I'll explain a little. My actual job title is support worker for autistic adults but I can't support while pregnant as the residents are high risk to me so I've just been shoved in an office scanning the last couple of years invoices. It is mind numbingly boring so I'm forever taking holidays or sick days just to get out of it.

Anyway my question is, Im wanting to take my mat leave at 30 weeks on 14th October and I'm wondering if my boss will say no and to wait a little longer. Can they do that?

I'm not entitled to maternity pay from work as I wasn't with them 26 weeks up to me being 15 weeks so I have to rely on SMP from government. I'm assuming because they don't have to pay me anything there should be no issues with mat leave, should there??????

Lisa in my experience, you tell the employer when you want to start your leave. At around 20 weeks you get the Matb1 form which you give to your employer and then fill in their paperwork detailing what you intend to do. They then calculate your dates, so will give you a breakdown of your pay, and the date you will return to work. If you are owed any holiday you need to book that as normal, (so eg, you want to start on 7th September but have a week holiday to use up so you book that from 30 August). Check how holiday is accrued while you are off, and how they expect you or allow you to use it (at my place I had to take it on the end of my maternity leave) but as far as I can recall, the employee states exactly when they want to start leave. The employer can only insist if the employer is off with pregnancy related sickness and even then that's only right at the end.

The only reason this would change is if your baby is born before the date you intended to start Mat leave as then your leave starts from the day you give birth.

My last baby was 3+ years ago so it might be worth starting a new post to get the info you want.