Maternity pay

[Josiejo12]

Hi all. I am 6 weeks pregnant with my first pregnancy and from my calculations I should be due early July 2020. I am hoping that someone might be able to give me some advice about maternity pay. I have worked for my employer for 2 years so qualify for the enhanced maternity pay however, I have just been asked if I would like to increase my hours. Obviously I haven't told work yet as its early days but I was wondering if I took on the extra hours would this reflect in my maternity pay or would this not count as I am already pregnant when I chose to take on the extra hours? To make things more complicated I have also been offered a secondment. Does anyone know how this may affect my maternity pay. Sorry for all the questions on my first post here, everything is still very new so I'm trying to get my head around it all!
Thanks in advance

Direct.gov has a calculator for this www.gov.uk/pay-leave-for-parents

For enhanced maternity pay you'd have to check your employment handbook. Most places use the qualifying week (25 weeks pg) to calculate mat pay. However this only has to be used for statutory pay. Employers can use what they like for enhanced pay.

Hi OP, if you increase your hours now it should be reflected in your enhanced maternity pay. If you took the secondment your enhanced maternity pay would be based on the new salary, until the secondment ended ( this could be while on maternity leave). Being on secondment would in no way affect your entitlement to enhanced maternity pay.

If you are going to be getting SMP, then the first 6 weeks is paid at 90% of your salary but the rest of the time after that it doesn't make any difference.

Thanks for your replies. I'm presuming that as my secondment (due to go permanent after initial period) is within the same organisation, that even if I wasn't entitled to the maternity pay for job B then I would still qualify for the pay from my current role.
Sorry I'm not sure if that even makes any sense!

As long as you are still employed by them then it shouldn't matter about the secondment 🤞

If it's over time hours I'm not sure if they'll add those in but if it's a permanent change then it'll be added into your mat pay, as someone mentioned before it's calculated by what you are doing at week 25 of pregnancy xx

Of give your maternity policy a good read, my enhanced pay was based on certain weeks (I can't remember exactly) but something like weeks 13-25. So my pay was based on the hours I worked in those weeks. It should say in your companies policy though

Thanks everyone, I'll have a good read of it!

Hi @Josiejo12, your entitlement to your enhanced maternity pay will be based on service with the organisation not in a specific role. If you are on a secondment your contractual terms and conditions of employment remain the same. You will be entitled to your maternity pay as expected.