Help! Just about to start maternity leave, have been made redundant.

[Jojay]

I'm expecting twins in the next 2-4 weeks. I'm currently on holiday from work and my maternity leave was due to start on 17th July.

I've been in to see my boss today, who has told me that my job role is ceasing to exist as from 15th July. The company is a large retailer and the role is going in all stores, so no discrimination issues.

I've been offered a redundancy package consisting of 12 weeks pay in lieu of notice, plus a redundancy payment of 1 weeks pay per year worked - in my case 12 years

As I will cease to be employed from 15th July, what happens to my maternity pay? Can I claim Maternity Allowance instead?

My head is spinning with it all - arrhhh!

Thank you

I think they should be paying the mat pay on top of redundancy but they probably aren't going to. Can you phone the job centre ASAP to ask about mat allowance ? Then you can plan

I think you're still entitled to your maternity pay as well and if you aren't you should definately get maternity allowance which is the same amount apart from the first 6 weeks. So you should get 39 weeks at £100 and something pounds plus the 24 weeks full pay 50% of which will be tax free I think?
I know this is a huge shock but it doesn't sound like to bad a deal tbh. Find out about the allowance and then relax and focus on your babies.

here under 'contract ends'

and here

Looks like they will need to pay you SMP. I assume that doesn't affect the pay in lieu of notice but I would check that with CAB because if it does then you might be better off with that than SMP - depends how much you earn per week.

this is nice and clear and looks like you get SMP plus your notice and redundancy. (Assuming you are more than 25 weeks which I assume you are?)

Thank you so much for those links NL - I'm going to print it off and take to another meeting we have planned for next week.

I'm 33+5 so no worries on the 25 week front.

Now it's sinking in, I can see it's not a bad deal and short to medium term we won't be any worse off, it's the long term I'm worried about as we're going to have to move house in the future to accommodate these twins and we need my salary to get the income multiplers for a bigger mortgage.....

But if this year has taught me anything ( finding out we are having twins was a huge shock, we were planning one more baby, not two!) it is that you can't plan for everything!

Thank you

Good luck
I'm sure with 12 years experience behind you, you are very employable and somethng will turn up when you're ready for it.

Thanks

I've just emailed my boss re SMP, so we'll see what they come back with.

In the meantime I'm rather getting used to teh idea of a year or two off