Any HR/Payroll exerts out there???

[bluebell82]

I have had my first pay slip since being on mat leave.. have worked 3 weeks as normal and one week as maternity leave.. they have paid me SMP and then company maternity pay and marked it seperately on my pay slip.. it seems a lot.. I had a good basic but my mat pay is made up of the comission I earned 15 weeks prior to my EWC which was good but even so it seems a lot for a week does the seperate payments seem right ???

I am no expert but your pay should be made up of 90% of whatever the pay at the qualifying period was.
I had a payrise in the middle of mine when I had ds and they had to average it between the 2 figures.
It would probably show seperately as the inland revenue would need to know which is SMP and which is other pay
Hope that makes sense

Yes, it sounds right. The SMP rate is 90% of everything earned in the reference period. If that reference period happened to contain a large commission payment (even if it was the whole year's worth of commission or an annual bonus) then it is counted and you are quids in!

Its normal to show them separately. Your company can claim back 92% of the SMP from the government.

As for pay increases, if you have a pay increase whilst you are receiving SMP (whether at the 90% rate or the 112.75 rate), they should backdate the salary increase to the start of the SMP payments, for the SMP portion only.

However, they may reduce the company maternity pay to compensate. I've just reworked someones pay because they've just had a pay increase. They were paid 13 weeks at full pay at the start of their maternity, so what I've had to do is offset their increase in SMP by decreasing their CMP, so they don't get any benefit from it. And this is currently legal.

Yes MaryBS- but no else normally has the right to have their pay rise backdated. If someone has received what was 100% of their salary at the time, I don't see why the fact that they get a payrise months later should change that. Tis a daft court decision that resulted in that rule about backdating.

If the payrise is during SMP, I think it should apply from the day it is awarded, or if it is backdated for everyone, from that date (i.e. the women on maternity leave should get it when everyone else gets it).

Sorry. Bit OT there...

I agree, it IS daft, but its the law, and if you are entitled to have it, then claim it! Many companies are ignorant of the ruling (known as Alabaster), which is why I mentioned it.

Mary - sure, I agree to claim it. I really meant that I understand why companies who pay enhanced maternity pay neutralise the effect.