Advice about maternity pay

[thecatsarecrazy]

Hi I'm hoping someone can give me some advice about if I am entitled to pay from my employer or not.
when I was taken on they only offered me an 8 hour contract. So any paper work will say employed 8 hours. I haven't actually done just 8 hours for a long time. The last 2 weeks i have done 20, week before that I did 12, think I have been doing 16 for months.
Thing is will maternity pay be based on hours I have done or what my contract says? I was talking to my supervisors and they couldn't agree. Last time I had to fill out a form at the job center and apply for money but I was only doing my basic hours in my last job.

It's based on your average weekly earnings at a certain point in your pregnancy:

www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/statutory-maternity-pay-how-it-worked-out

So if you want to boost your mat pay you should make sure you get in as much overtime as possible before that point.

I work in payroll and deal with maternities all the time.
It doesn't go by the hours in your contract it goes by how much you're actually earning.
You have to earn over £112 per week at the qualifying week (15weeks before your due date take that date then look at your earnings for the period of 8 weeks before that date)
You have to have worked for them for 1 week before becoming pregnant xxx

I'm currently pregnant and not entitled to SMP but Maternity Allowance. Not sure if it works exactly the same but what they asked for was my most recent payslips for the last 13 weeks. From there, the calculate your average weekly wage and pay you that per week (up to a maximum of £140).

So if what you earn each week on average is £140 or less, you'll get either £140 or the lesser amount which will be bang on your average weekly wage. If your average weekly wage is over £140, you'll only get the maximum of £140 a week regardless.

I thought I'd pop this here incase it is Maternity Allowance that you're entitled to

thank you everyone for your help