Working self employed whilst on maternity leave

[alwaystiredneversleeping]

Does anyone know please whether you are allowed to work self employed whilst on maternity leave from paid enployment?

I work full time for an employer and on top of that about 30-40 hours per month self employed.

I plan to start my maternity leave in April 2018 and take a full year off from my employed job.

I want to carry on working self employed over my maternity period as 90% of my self employed role is home based anyway, plus if I take the year off I will basically lose my work, its not something I can just do when I fancy as the clients don't accept that. If I stop over maternity and don't meet certain quotas I get taken off their contractors list and would have to reapply - there are rarely vacancies.

So basically can I be on mat leave from employment but still opperate as self employed in a totally unrelated role?

You are not eligible for statutory maternity pay if you are working.

I don't think you can and claim maternity pay / allowance at the same time.

but if its truly self employed you might be ok.

Yes you can

sorry, not sure why my post split into two!

You can't claim SMP and MA at the same time.

But you can get SMP from your employer and continue self-employed work whilst on maternity leave.

Oh yes I know I can't get SMP + MA together. I will be getting SMP plus occupational maternity pay from my employer.

But I still need to try and work at least 3 hours a week on a self employed basis in order to remain a self employed contractor for the job I do on the side - that is totally self employed and I am registered as such, do self assessment etc...

I just don't want to risk losing my SMP for the sake of the small amount of self employed income I would be getting.

Yes you can. Essentially you have 2 jobs-the two have nothing to do with each other. You are taking a mat break from only one of these jobs, and they will pay your contractually agreed mat pay.

Yes you can. I'm currently doing it myself