problem with maternity leave scheme

[steele143]

Hello guys, one week ago I spoken with my manager about my maternity leave, we spoken about keep in touch days as well.She told me that during my maternity leave she can call me anytime to have a face to face meeting with me and I'm almost obligated to go to these meetings, if I can not go I have to provide them with a valid reason so trial. Then she also told me that if I do not return to work or if I do not stay in business for another 6 months after my return from maternity motherhood that I have to return the company paid me. My company pay me the SMP, first 6 week 90%
after £120 or something like this, I don't remeber very well.

Have already been to the citizen advice bureau and they told me that I am not obliged to go to the meeting and that I must not return motherhood. to citizen I have printed the sheets to show the manager with written on everything, and the manager told me that it's not like I told the citizen because the policy of the company is different and therefore it is as I said my manager the first time.

Who is right??

Thanks

If the company is only paying you SMP, you do not have to repay anything if you do not return to work. This is because SMP is a benefit, the majority of which is paid by the government; employers can reclaim 92% of it back via their NI contributions, so they have no right to try and claim it back from you and they are breaking the law if they do. However, if they pay you more than SMP, they are entitled to ask you to repay the contractual element if you don't return, but the terms should be set out in your contract of employment.

KIT Days are optional to both the employee and the employer and they cannot force you to work them unless you agree.

thanks for the replay.
yes yes they pay me only the SMP plus other benefits such as staff employed cards and other benefits but which are not money.

i would ask to be sent a copy of the maternity leave policy and make sure you know exactly what you are getting paid!

As sue says if you are only getting SMP with no company top up then they cannot ask you to pay it back but if they give you anything on top of SMP (£136 a week) then you may find you have to pay that back (am on maternity and debating not going back)

If your manager is being this dumb about the law then i strongly suggest that you request an urgent meeting with your HR department as they will be able to set your manager straight!

Legally they cannot contact you while you are on mat leave except to confirm your date of returning to work which will be done 8 weeks before. They cannot ask you to do KIT days it is for to contact them.

Tomorrow I call the department of human resource of my company and I ask them some question!!
But when my baby is born I have to send the certificate of birth to my company or is not necessary?

When you are about 20 -24 weeks your midwife will give you a MatB1 form. This will have your due date on it and be signed by your midwife. You give this to your employer - when you call HR tomorrow check if they want this sending direct to them or if you give it to your boss.

I don't understand why here in uk the maternity it's to complicated! KIT days money back ecc ecc

KIT days are completely optional, they can't force you to do them (they do have to pay you at full salary for them though so it can be a nice way of getting a bit more cash while you are on leave). They are a good thing - it used to be that you were utterly forbidden from doing any work while on leave or you would lose all your maternity pay which made it more difficult to keep a career going.

It is completely illegal for your boss to insist on face to face meetings or to hassle you about work in any way while you are on leave. You can do work on agreed KIT days. Any day that your boss makes you engage with work counts as a KIT day and you are only allowed 10 of these even if you only do 5 minutes "work" on a specific day. You have an absolute right to have protected time off work, they cannot take that away from you.

If they are only giving you the statutory minimum (90% for 6 weeks then SMP) then they have no right to claim anything at all back if you do not return - this amount is what you have an absolute right to receive whatever you do next and it doesn't matter what their "policy" is - an illegal policy is unenforcable. They also have to continue any non-pay benefits (car, mobile, gym membership, whatever you normally receive) throughout your ML and they can't reclaim anything for these.

You don't have to show them your baby's birth certificate, your MATB1 form is all they need.

Your boss sounds horrible. I hope you don't have to return there.

correction as my wording above is confusing: they can't "make" you do any KIT days. If you don't want to do them you can just forget about work completely during your leave except for communicating an expected date of return (or non-return).

You have every right to tell them an expected date of return that is a year from the date your ML started, and then hand in your notice either 8 weeks before that date or your contracted notice period before that date, whichever is earlier, if you don't want to return. You don't have to tell them you won't be returning before then if you are worried they might muck you about.

I just meant that if you do engage with work at all -e.g. if they ask you to check over something that you normally do which someone else has done in your absence, then even if this only takes you 5 minutes this counts as one of your 10 KIT days - they only have to pay you for 5 minutes work (hardly worth it) but that deducts one of your 10 allowable days that you are allowed to work without losing your maternity pay

"they do have to pay you at full salary for them though"

Er, no. Pay for Keeping in Touch Days is negotiable between employer and employee. They don't have to pay anything, although obviously the employee is unlikely to be willing to do the days in that case. Most employers top up SMP to normal pay rate.

"Legally they cannot contact you while you are on mat leave except to confirm your date of returning to work which will be done 8 weeks before. They cannot ask you to do KIT days it is for to contact them"

Not at all. It's fine and in fact appropriate to be in touch with a woman on maternity leave-employers are not supposed to just ignore you completely until 8 weeks before you return, and yes of course they can ask you to do KIT days, although it's entirely up to you whether or not you do them.

As a basic principle, employers can't have a policy that isn't in line with legal requirements.

Does anyone know how much is the basic statutory pay after 6 week?

about £135 per week until 39th week.

My c

My company pay me 90% the first 6 week and after £120 pw!

They claim it back from the government so it is not actually them paying ! The Statutory minimum is 90% of an average week's wage for 6 weeks then SMP which is defined here ie £138.18 unless you normally earn less than £154(approx.) gross per week for the next 33. Of course that assumes you do qualify for SMP in terms of employment history etc. If they only pay the Statutory amount they cannot legally ask for a penny back regardless of whether you return or not and you can keep any benefits ie staff discount card while you are employed on ml.

Steele, your company cannot legally pay you less than SMP. Do you have a contract?

Solasum my normal salary is £140 p/w and for sure the company pay me £120 p/w

Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) is paid for up to 39 weeks. You get:

*90% of your average weekly earnings (before tax) for the first 6 weeks
*£138.18 or 90% of your average weekly earnings (whichever is lower) for the next 33 weeks

90% of your weekly earnings would be less than £138.18 so you get paid the lower amount (gives around £126 for 90% of £140)

So like this I don't have give money back to my company right?

no, if you just got statutory pay then you dont need to pay anything back

Use this calculator to calculate what SMP you should be getting: www.gov.uk/maternity-paternity-calculator/y