Occupational Maternity Pay & pay increase?

[mrsm1984]

Hi all,

I'm starting maternity leave on the 24th September for 52 weeks - I'm currently on two weeks annual leave beforehand. My company has been going through a restructure, and I was informed of how this would impact me on Friday.

Essentially, I have a bit of a pay increase from £25,472 to £27,604.

I know that the statutory part of the maternity pay is paid based on my average earnings over an 8-week period already gone, but I'm wondering if the occupational maternity pay element (which will come into effect from 5th November for 12 weeks) which is half pay + SMP will reflect my new rate? It's only aabout £20 per week, but every little helps during the reduced pay period!

Can anyone advise? I've Googled and not found anything specific. My payroll department are also useless, so I doubt they'd think about it.

Thank you in advance :-)

Two things.

Firstly, you're not going to find anything specific about how your occupational maternity pay is calculated because that is specific to your employer and should be in the policy in question. If it just says 'half pay' it's reasonable to assume that means half your current pay rather than half the pay you were receiving at some previous date. What is the exact wording of the policy/contract/letter/wherever it is that says about OMP?

Secondly if you have a pay rise after your SMP has been calculated your employer has to recalculate anyway, see [[
www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/spmmanual/spm20865.htm Alabaster ruling here]].

Thanks for this - the policy just says "for the following twelve weeks you will receive half pay plus SMP", so isn't very useful.