Working on maternity leave

[bardos]

Can you get a second job while on maternity leave?

I'm 4 months into my maternity leave already. I'll have three months with no pay and could also do with the extra cash beforehand as I'm currently getting £400 less than I would if I wasn't on mat leave.

A friend of mine has offered me some part time work, but I don't want to risk loosing my maternity pay.

TIA!

No you can't unless you already had the job before the 25th week of pregnancy. Think you may be able to do self employed work rather than be an employee though

Can't she just pay you cash in hand.

You can do self employed work but if you contract with a second employer then it will end your statutory maternity pay.

I'll see if I can do it as self employed. Thank you!

You can definitely work self employed while on mat leave

I know a girl she's a friend of a friend who worked in an office but had a pub job at night

She took a year off the office job but after 3 months went back to do 2 nights a week in said pub

3 managers from the office randomly went to the pub and saw her and reported this to HR as she had enhanced maternity

Go cut a long story short she lost her maternity pay as she wasn't "on leave" and had to pay back the money to her employer and to the state for the statutory element and then she was investigated for fraud as the pub job turned out to be cash in hand she'd never paid a penny tax on it and she ended up in court for not declaring it on tax credits and got a big fine and also lost both jobs

To be fair as an honest hardworking law abiding citizen I have no sympathy when I was on maternity leave we'd planned for it and just had to be careful

You can be on maternity leave at different times if you have 2 jobs and can legally work at one while still on leave at the other. If she had been doing it through the books rather than cash in hand then she wouldn't have had an issue

maternityaction.org.uk/advice/rights-for-parents-with-more-than-one-job/

Thanks for the replies. I'd be too scared to go down the cash in hand route, as knowing my luck I'd get caught. I think I'll go down the self employed route. Would I be able to be sub-contracted by someone? Or would that then be classed as employment?

What is the line of work with your friend?

If you can register as self employed (takes minutes). Then be paid a day rate by your friend for doing casual work in this role it is perfectly legal.

It doesn't need to be cash. You can invoice and be paid into your bank.