Claiming maternity allowance while still being paid from freelance work!

[skyward]

Wonder if anyone can help answer my question - or tell me who to ring to find out. I'm a self-employed marketing consultant and recently booked a series of adverts for a client that will continue to run while I'm off on maternity leave. I intend to claim MA as I qualify, but will still be getting commission payments each time the ads run. I've just spoken to someone at JobCentrePlus (who didn't really inspire me with confidence in her knowledge) who said that was fine because I won't be working and it's for work I've already done. But I have to put in invoice each month to get the commission. Can I do this? Don't want to end up in trouble but can't find the answer anywhere.

Try here

Quoting from the directgov site...
"What if your circumstances change?
It's important you tell Jobcentre Plus if your circumstances change.
If you do some work for an employer, or as a self-employed person, before your MA is due to end, you will be able to work for up to ten days without losing any MA. If you work for more than ten days, you will lose MA for the days you work after that.
You must tell Jobcentre Plus about any work you do when you are receiving MA."

This bit seems to answer your question, if you work for more than 10 days you can loose your MA but otherwise it seems ok. Like the Jobcentre said, if it's work you've already done but are invoicing for now it seems fine. I know what you mean about double checking these things though. You could always try Citizens Advice or Business Gateway for more advice.

As far as I know commission payments are fine because they are payments due to you from a piece of work that is not new. I do look after Sales people and when they are on maternity its fine for them to claim their commissions but only on completed pieces of work and not for any new pieces of work as this would be considered working.

That doesn't answer the OP's question though. She's already done the work, she's just still being paid for it.

I would ring them up and ask them. They were very helpful to me when I was claiming last year.

I was in a similar position when dd was born, and it was not a problem for maternity allowance, I got paid for work already completed for c.5 months after having her.

Also as sunny bump points out you can do 10 days work without losing MA so if you invoice once a month for the (potential)9 months you get MA it should be no problem.

Thanks very much guys - do any of you know who I should ring? I can't find any sensible contact numbers on the internet.