Pay rise during Mat leave

[MrsMidgeMaisel]

Hi

I have queried this a couple of times with my employer but don't really understand the explanation so am hoping for clarification here.

Mat leave started Feb 22.
By end of Nov 22 both SMP and OMP had ceased.
I took the full twelve months Mat leave, and am currently on annual leave when I will return to work in April.
Pay rise received in Jan 2023 following a benchmarking exercise.
Employer has now sent me a revised maternity pay schedule to 'reflect the pay rise'. I questioned this as Pay rise surely only effective from January by which point all mat pay had ceased. They say legislation states my entire Mat pay has to be recalculated based on new salary? This confuses me as I was not on that salary last year and someone who was at work wouldn't be backdated their salary to last year?
Can someone please clarify this for me, as do not want to end up owing them money. Thanks.

When is the salary being backdated from? When you're on maternity leave (and getting pay) you are like any other employee so you would get the increase.

Well I thought it would be January as that's when the pay rise was effective from, but they're saying they're recalculating my maternity pay

So are they planning to pay you additional money that they now believe they owe you from when you were on enhanced pay? That does sound odd. I did a quick check on the GOV.uk website and it does seem to suggest that a recalculation is necessary if a pay raise is offered but that it doesn't necessarily mean that the employer will now owe the employee any money. It depends on the circumstances.

In your case, I can't see it would impact things as I'm assuming you're on annual leave but not being paid? It might impact any payments they have to make you should you not take all the leave and bank holidays you have accrued.

My employer recently evaluated our jobs and found we were on wrong post grade (Nov) so our pay was corrected from the start of the financial year (April). We also received our annual pay increase late and that was backdated to April.
This is quite usual.

@MrsMidgeMaisel its know as the Alabaster judgement.

If your pay increases before the end of Maternity Leave an employer has to recalculate SMP, in particular the 6 weeks at 90%.

OMP depends on how it is calculated. If they use the 8 week window then your OMP is similarly recalculated.

It sounds like your payroll are applying the rules correctly.

But the OP says the pay increase start date was after her MP period finished. By at least 2 months going by what she wrote.

@journeyofsanity in her op @MrsMidgeMaisel states she started Mat leave in Feb22 and took the full 12 months so the 12 month period ends Feb 23 I.e. 20/02/2022 to 19/02/2023.

The pay rise was in Jan 2023 so within the maternity leave period. Attached are links to HMRC guidance and Chartered Institute of payroll professionals.

www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/statutory-payments-manual/spm172200

www.cipp.org.uk/resources/news/the-basics-of-smp.html

Yep yep. I see you are correct

Yep this is right, my payroll have confirmed it's backdated to the start of Mat leave now explicitly so thanks everyone. I don't really understand the rationale but extra ££ so I will take it!