reckonable service for redundancy payout- mat leave

[bedraggledmumoftwo]

Hi all, there was a bit of a discussion about whether mat leave should be included in service on my thread when I was turned down for vr, but was obviously a moot point then.
Now out of the blue they have granted it! So the question is whether all or part of my two mat leaves should be included in reckonable service. This is civil service, and the compensation scheme guidance specifically lists unpaid maternity leave as excluded, along with career breaks etc. In my department this basically means the whole six months of additional maternity leave as it is recorded on hr system as unpaid mat leave, even for the three months of smp.

Anybody know for sure if this is right? I have to sign a commitment to leave stencil before I get the official estimate so I am doing lots of maths to check the cost benefit analysis!

hi all, just an update. Got my quote back from the Civil Service Pensions people. It is at the midpoint of the range I thought it might be in- it doesn't have any calculations, just a figure, which works out as including the period of OML and SMP and just deducting the periods of completely unpaid leave (eg the last 13 weeks).

So I am relatively happy, in that they have included the SMP period where I didn't think they would. However, it is still around £2k lower than it would have been if they hadn't reduced my service by excluding those unpaid periods. I am now a fully paid up member of the union, so I think I will raise it with them, but as Steven pointed out, this is a statutory scheme laid before parliament, so I don't see anything much being done!