Employer change during maternity leave (local government)

[MrsWombat]

I work for the local government and my department will be commissioned out to be run by a private or third sector organisation while I'm on maternity leave. The transfer over will happen when baby is around 6 months old next spring.

What normally happens with this? Will I still get my full maternity pay? Will I need to interrupt my maternity leave to go to meetings about it? (i'd have to bring BF baby)

It must be a fairly unique situation as Google isn't helping!

Rather stressed!

do you know anything about the transfer? will your continuous service transfer? if so I suspect that your mat leave would transfer as well and you would have no noticeable change. mat pay comes from the government - your employer will claim it back (save any enhancements) and as you were entitled previous to change of employer I should think it will be fine.

disclaimer: I'm no legal expert just I work in local gov too. I've had a change of employer with the rest of my team and it all just happened with HR and we got issued with new contracts from the new employer (who I've now had 2 lots of mat pay from)

re meetings - you could use your paid kit days to go in. but it is not remotely compulsory so you don't have to. or you could go in for a half day. I've done a few kit days recently and the nanny has bought the babies in for a feed.

hope that's some use.

We just had an initial meeting today so don't know much yet. They don't even know which organisation will be running things. We've been told that there are no plans for job losses, and our terms and conditions will be transferred over to the new company but I've not seen that in writing, and we are all very skeptical, and think that we will be made redundant once the new organisation is in charge.

I'm guessing that my contractual maternity pay (12 weeks half pay over 18 weeks in addition to SMP) will be finished by the time the transfer is complete so don't need to worry about that. But I have to pay it back if I don't return...

I was hoping to use my KIT days shortly before I return to work as a kind of phased return or for "easy" things like team meetings or training once childcare was in place, like I did last time. Not for meetings when baby is too tiny to be left!

Poocatcher - did your contracts stay the same, or pretty much the same, and did you keep your continuous service, and pension stuff?

yes all that stuff came with and we kept our terms and conditions which are actually more favourable than our new employers.

if you are made redundant you might be entitled to keep your whole mat pay given that you were prepared to come back. or you might be able to negotiate it.

regarding the kit days you could not attend and ask your manager to brief you separately. they can't treat you differently and as kit days aren't compulsory they can't insist you use them for essential briefings. another option would be to ask to bring your baby (depending on whether workplace would accommodate and whether baby is a screamerama)

Has the word TUPE been used yet, OP?

Sounds like a TUPE situation to me. Are you in social services by any chance?

TUPE hasn't been mentioned yet, as far as I know, but it was just an "informal" meeting and we have been given nothing in writing yet. They mentioned that they had to give the unions a certain number of days notice before something happened (can't remember what) which they are doing this week, so I assume they are working within TUPE guidelines. (Now I've looked it up)

I work indirectly with social services. How did you guess?

I work in local govt, just something that's in the air in my neck of the woods!

I am no expert at all but I would have thought you will be TUPEd over & conditions remain the same? Are you a union member?