How maternity leave and pay work

[MrsZ19]

Hey everyone,
I have just had a conversation with my boss and now I am super confused as to how maternity pay works.
I was under the impression
My company pay me my full pay for 12 weeks( this is definitely correct) then I get 39 weeks statutory pay from the government making mat pay 52 weeks.
Or is it 12 weeks from my company and 27 weeks from the government making it 39 weeks altogether then 12 weeks unpaid if I take up to a year off.
I did try to google it but I was a little confused please help lol

Or is it 12 weeks from my company and 27 weeks from the government making it 39 weeks altogether then 12 weeks unpaid if I take up to a year off

This I think. I got the impression when I looked into it that if I wanted to take a full year I’d have to take the last part with no income.

The second one. Your company maternity pay will include statutory maternity pay topped up by your company to your full pay. So when that ends SMP will take over, although it will continue to be paid by your company, I believe they can claim all/part of it back from the government, but you don't have to do a separate claim. SMP continues up to 39 weeks then the final 13 weeks is unpaid if you choose to take the full year of leave.

It will be SMP of 90% of pay* for 6 weeks then around £150 per week for 33 weeks. Your employer tops this up to full pay for the first 12 weeks. If you want the whole year off the last 13 weeks will be unpaid.

*calculated between weeks 17-25 of the pregnancy

You get 39 weeks statutory pay from the beginning of your maternity leave and you are entitled to take 1 year, meaning the last 3 months are unpaid. Any enhanced pay from your employer is paid on top of the stat pay (minus the value of the stat pay). So you will get paid full pay (made up of your stat pay and then topped up to full pay by your employer for 12 weeks), then you will drop to stat pay for 27 weeks and then unpaid for 3 months. Hope that makes sense

Thank you so much everyone it all makes perfect sense now 😄

The last 12 weeks are unpaid, I'm just starting it now, last month wasn't a lot either. My mat leave started on 14th of July last year so instead of 3 months with no money I have a month with 2 weeks, 2 months with nothing and then a month with 2 weeks... on a positive note I'm planning to take my ten KIT (keep in touch) days in late may/early July and you get paid for those so that will make things a bit easier...

Yeah I think I’ll definitely do my kit days 😂 thank you