Maternity Leave and Pension Contributions - Help

[icantremembermylastusername]

Hi lovely ladies.

I'm hoping someone can give me a bit of a steer on a pension question. Our HR lady at work is a bit useless and had messed up the last couple of people's maternity pay, so I just want to make sure that she gets mine right.

My employment contract says that work will pay up to 5% into my pension provided that I pay in the same percentage. They don't have visibility of what I pay in as I pay directly from my net pay.

When I go on maternity leave my pay will be 3 months full, 3 months half, 3 months SMP and then nothing.

My question is do I still need to pay 5% of my normal salary for work to continue their contributions? Or do I simply need to pay 5% of what I take home? I'm conscious that when I'm on SMP my normal contribution will be actually more than what I will be paid.

Thanks in advance.

Unless your pension contributions during maternity leave are explicitly set out in your contract (unlikely) then I think it will be down to the discretion/interpretation of your HR department.

I am in a similar situation to you, with my employer paying in and me adding in directly from net pay. In my last pregnancy my employer's pension contributions carried on at their normal level, and I decided to keep mine the same too, even though I was earning less. If you can afford to do this then it is definitely worth it.

Your employer has to pay their contribution at what you would usually get on your normal pay.
You have to make some contribution though - I just pay 5% of my maternity pay and my employer has to pay 5% of my usual pay as if I wasn’t on leave. This only applies through the SMP. If I take a full year the last 3 months - I won’t get any employer contribution.
Does that make sense?

In brief:
Your employer needs to continue to make contributions as if you were not on maternity leave.
You should make contributions based on your actual earnings while on leave

There are however a number of things which can complicate this, which we don't know for your situation:
-Is your pension scheme defined benefit or defined contribution?
-If defined contribution is it "relief at source", salary sacrifice, or "net pay" (careful - "net pay" arrangements are badly named and actually come from gross salary)?
-is all of your pay pensionable? (for example bonuses and commission are often not pensionable)

You say your employer doesn't know what you contribute because it comes from your net pay - do you mean your contribution is not even taken through PAYE and you actually pay it yourself from your bank account? If so this is quite unusual and you should be making sure that you are receiving all of the tax benefits from making contributions.