When should I be notified of maternity policy

[MsKitten]

My company has just informed me that I'll formally be told what our company paternity policy and pay is 3 and half months before my due date. Its a really small company and I'm the first person ever to need go on maternity leave. I can appreciate that it takes time to sort out and set up but 3 months before my due date doesn't give me much time to do financial planning around what my maternity pay is going to be.

I suppose I'm jsut going to have to work on the basis of worst case scenario that it could just be statutory. I let them know I was pregnant when I was only 8 weeks for this very reason and I thought it was fairest to give them plenty of notice to sort things out. I know I am obliged to let my employers within a certain timeframe, do they have any obligation to me to let me know what our maternity policy is within a timeframe?

it should have been in your contract when you joined the company

if it's a small company you're unlikely to get more than stat

Presumably as you are the first person they don't have a maternity policy and haven't decided if they can offer more than statutory and if so, what that will be.

If you let them know at 8 weeks, and they have promised to let you know at about 24/25 weeks, then that sounds ok to me. They will have had only a couple of months to decide what their policy is going to be, which is actually pretty quick if they're considering the possibility of offering more. They will have had to take advice about maternity rights and cost it all, investigate possibilities of offering more, how much it could be, what terms and conditions they could set on it, financial projections in terms of future costs for other employees, all sort of different factors. Coming up with a policy within 2 months sounds fairly prompt.

What difference to your financial planning now would it make if you had a few weeks more notice?

Dont know if there is a timeframe but the least you will get is set out so would work to that. TBH I doubt you'll get more than that if it is a small company.

Seeing as the maternity policy might effect your decision making when it comes to leaving and coming back I think them leaving it until you are 24/25 weeks is rather lat.

You need to get your MATB1 form to them by the time you only have 15 weeks left and should have agreed leaving and start dates before doing this.

I would want to know earlier if it were me.

There's no reason to make any decisions about coming back yet though. Yes ideally they should have already had a policy in place and you'd know immediately, but small businesses often don't until the need arises, so I think saying they'll produce one within two months of notification isn't that bad actually.

oh - I have just realised this is RE paternity pay?

I would imagine it's just 2 weeks? My DH gets one week pay from his company and then one weeks statutory.

Doh - ignore what I just said. I think you put Paternity in the main post by mistake but it's clearly Maternity pay you are asking about - I am a numpty!

Yes, sorry I'm the numpty, wrote paternity instead of maternity in the main post.

Its actually taking them 4 months to work out what the package. I think I'm just a bit frustrated as they've made a big fuss about being a female/family friendly employer.

It just makes it hard to plan on how long I can afford to take off, how much money we need to be putting aside each month. What to do about what money I put into pension v savings in the meantime.

I'll stop whinging now :)

I thik you have every right to winge (not that you were!) to be fair