Anyone claimed Maternity Allowance & Shared parental leave?

[KCpip]

Hi, looking for some help with Maternity Allowance and shared parental leave/ pay. I'm planning to claim MA as I'm self employed. My partner has been told he can get 6 weeks on full pay but only weeks 6-12 and in that time I would need to be back at work. My understanding is that I can stop my MA for 6 weeks but then reactive shared parental pay after the 6 weeks. Has anyone done this? Does that sound right? I'm nervous about doing it then being told I can't reactive it and I would then lose weeks and weeks of MA or SPP, whichever it is called. Quite confused by all this!!

It is all very confusing! I'm afraid I am not 100% sure (I thought you could basically split the maternity leave with your partner in any manner you want, as long as the mother takes at least 2 weeks off at the start, but I've heard other stuff to say that it's more complicated than that!).

If I were you I'd post in some of the 'work' sections of Mumsnet (maybe the 'employment issues' and 'family friendly' sections) as some employment lawyers hang out there. Also, maybe try calling Acas or Maternity Action as they should be clued up on shared parental leave.

Thanks for the advice. I couldn't find the right place on MNet to post this so will take a look at that. I phoned a couple of helplines today and still don't feel I understand it 100% I get the feeling coz it's new a lot of the advisors are still figuring it out too! Eg. The guy on the MA allowance phone number told me I can get shared parental pay but from what I've read online I can't get that coz I'm self employed. Will keep trying to get to the bottom of it! Thanks again

Hi - I wondered how you got on with this?

I'm looking at taking some shared parental leave while I'm on maternity allowance, and am nervous that if I stop my maternity allowance claim for a month or so, while my partner takes shared parental leave, if I reactivate my claim (and take more parental leave) I won't then be entitled to maternity allowance. Does anyone have any experienced on this?