MNHQ here: post your pregnancy & maternity work questions here for FREE legal advice from Maternity Action

[NicolaDMumsnet]

Free online advice clinic 12th June - 16th June 2023 - OPEN NOW.

Welcome to the second clinic of the year running from 12th to 16th June. We hope you're getting the chance to enjoy the sunshine!

Mumsnet and Maternity Action are once again teaming up to provide an online legal clinic, offering free advice on pregnancy, maternity and parental rights at work from volunteer employment lawyers who are members of the Employment Law Association.

Whether you have a question about maternity leave, your request for flex work, your rights as a pregnant worker, or think you may be discriminated against by your employer because of being a parent, this is the place for you.

The clinic takes the form of a Q&A on this thread and will run for a week from Monday 12th to Friday 16th of June. The Maternity Action team will do their best to provide all answers during that week and at the latest by the Tuesday of the following week. More information on where to go for more help once the clinic has ended is here. All past clinics are here.

How it works:

• If you have a question about your rights at work during pregnancy, maternity or parental leave, post it here below before the 16th June. Please give as much information as possible but remember that this is an online forum and can be viewed by the public – including your colleagues and employer. Please don’t name your employer publicly if you are likely to be taking action against them in future. You can use private message to disclose information to the volunteers that you’d rather not make public.

• Please send your name and the name of your employer by private message to MaternityActionfreeadvice so that it can be passed on to the volunteers to do a conflict of interest check. We cannot post a reply until you have sent this information by private message.

• Once your advice has been posted online, you will have an opportunity to provide feedback. This helps us to find out whether you found the advice helpful, whether it helped you to resolve your situation at work and some information about you. All survey responses are anonymous and confidential. Providing feedback will help us to see what improvements can be made in developing this type of online free legal advice clinic. Fill out the survey here.

Ts and Cs – please read
The advice provided to an individual poster is based only on the information provided by that poster. Advice on this thread is also particular to the individual who has asked for it and is likely to be specific to that person’s situation. A poster may have provided further relevant information by private message which will not appear on this thread. So please take care if you choose to apply that advice to your own situation - it is recommended that you first take legal advice from one of the sources we have suggested here.

Mumsnet, Maternity Action and Maternity Action's volunteers accept no liability for any loss suffered as a result of an individual choosing to follow advice provided to another poster's question on the thread.

The lawyers, all of whom are specialists in employment law, will be working as volunteers for Maternity Action in respect of the clinic. Any personal information collected as a result of the clinic will be held by Maternity Action and will be deleted after 18 months. If you wish to make a complaint about the service you received, you can use Maternity Action’s complaints policy here

Hi everyone,

Just a message to let you all know to please send your details via PM to this account so that we can quickly get you allocated to a solicitor. These details are not logged or shared for any other purposes than completing a conflict check.

Best wishes,

Maternity Action

I have been automatically selected for redundancy and notified of this 3 weeks after returning from maternity leave. Whilst I was away, my cover only did a small percentage of my role, and my other tasks have been shared out with the rest of my team. I am now being told that due to restructuring of the department, there is only 20% of my role available to me, not enough to maintain my position. The team understood that they would be handing my work back to me when I returned but it was kept from me with no explanation, until I received this news. I believe I am being unfairly treated because I was away from the business when these decisions were made.

Firstly, thank you so much for this service. You people are amazing!

I am a junior doctor in the NHS, in London.
My wife works in marketing, in London.

We are expecting baby number 3 in a few weeks.

My wife is planning to take 9 months mat leave. Her work offer 4 months full pay enhanced mat pay.

I am planning to take 2 weeks of paterntiy leave at full pay (the full entitlement) and we would like me to take 5 weeks shared parental leave between 31/7/23 and 3/9/23 - not continuous with my pat leave. According to my employer policy I qualify for this at full pay due to continuous years of NHS service and time spent at this trust before the due date.

Please could someone advise how this works in terms of my wife's maternity pay and leave? I have understood it that the time I take will cut short her time allowance by 5 weeks and her pay allowance by 5 weeks of statutory pay at the end of her mat leave. I've tried to figure out how we fit into the examples on the Gov website but I can't fully understand them or see which we fit.

FYI we both meet all preconditions to qualify for the amount of pay and time we are planning/expecting to take from our respective employers.

Thanks in advance!

Hi,

I am currently on my maternity leave and I applied for a new job which I successfully passed the interview and got a provisional offer subject to pre-employment checks. They are now doing the pre-employment checks which might include them contacting my current employer for references.

My concern is that I haven’t yet given notice to my current employer and I am worried how they might react when my prospective employer contacts them, will they give a fair reference or will they say ‘this employee is currently on maternity leave’.

I am at cross roads not knowing what to do because I don’t want to hand in my notice until I have a formal offer from my prospective employer and I am concerned what my current employer will provide in the reference check when contacted.

Please advise if I need to do anything.

Hello! Thanks so much for this service.
My husband and I are planning to do shared parental leave.

I am self employed and his employer offers enhanced shared parental pay. I’m am claiming 19 weeks of Maternty Allowance, while he is taking 20 weeks of shared parental leave with enhanced pay from his employer.

I am planning to go back to work 3-4 days a week. Would the one work day a week that I’m at home count as me being “on leave” one day each week - and therefore would it affect the amount of pay that he is entitled to? Would I be getting paid MA for that day a week?

Or is it a simple 18 weeks for me 21 weeks split - without the working pattern affecting how much shared parental PAY he gets?

Thanks again!

I am so grateful for you amazing people!! Will try and keep this short and hope it makes sense (typing one handed with baby asleep in the other).

I work for a PE firm in London and have just returned back to work after my second child. I had my first child here as well (Summer 2019). I am an Assistant and support a very senior person. When having my first child, a mat contract was hired to cover me whilst I was off, this time around, my boss decided to hire a permanent person (not mat cover) and I found out through the recruiter that this role would take over my role permanently. During the recruitment process, my boss repeatedly stated (to me and the recruiter) that he only wanted to look at candidates that were in their late 40s / early 50’s with no or older children. The two final candidates fitted this brief and the person now in my role is in her 50’s and with no children.
When discussing my return to work, not only did I have to chase multiple times for this but I was repeatedly ignored. In December I had discussed that I wanted to return part time and look to be back full time within a year of being on mat leave. With my first child my request to come back part time was declined, and it was made clear that I would have to return full time by the end of my child turning 1. So I assumed that same would happen here.
This time, in Dec 2022 he agreed to me coming back PT and slowly increasing my days so that by 1 year since taking mat leave I will be back full time. Coming back after 7 months off with baby. Months later of me chasing…he then states that there is not enough work and can only offer me a part time position and it wouldn’t be my old role. He states that I have a family and unable to commit to the role. Though this has never been questioned before with my first child.
The role he then gives me is nothing (not even 1%) similar to my old role. With the pressure to return to work for financial reasons, I agreed to take PT on the basis that the role will go full time by at the very latest the end of the year and would allow him to figure out my role. He is now after 2 months of being back saying my role will not go full time and reneging on what was agreed. Not only that he picked the days I had to work, didn’t ask me what days I could do which led to me sorting out childcare last minute as he replied with in a week of my requested start date.

When I asked if I could tweak my hours so that I could get home in time to breast feed my baby he declined this and said its only 2 days I would be away from her, 2 days more than I wanted to. My hours are 9 to 5pm and asking to do 8 to 4pm, even offering to work through my lunch break. There is another mother who has flexible working but because she is a single mother, it is different! And her daughter is approaching 3 years vs my 7 months old (who refuses to take a bottle). He also said I couldn’t WFH but the entire company is able to do so, and so does he! I am part of the Parent Group at work and during a call, everyone stated how great it was that they had flexibility in the office days (can do school runs etc) but also WFH 1-2 days a week. It is a global call but it seems that only London doesn’t have the same level of flexibility.

I reluctantly agreed to come back, I had to for the money sadly and I knew in my gut he would do this and he has done just that. When asked what I want, it just what is mine, my full time role back. I can get over the fact it’s a different role but not that its part time. Or if he wants to get rid of me as I chose to have a family, then have that discussion.
When asked where I could pump during my office days, I was told there was no where I could pump. There are other things, like I had a high risk pregnancy and suffered previous baby loss (whilst at the company) and the medical team wanted me to WFH but my boss ignored my requests for 6 weeks and only because I said I would WFH 2 days a week. I still haven’t had any comms on my KIT day payments or my annual leave that I accrued whilst being on mat leave.

It totally feels like he knows I am having a second child and has assumed for me that I cannot do the job and has manoeuvred me out. Now he is reneging on my role going full time though I only accepted part time on the basis it will go full time. He is saying if I go FT I would have to be in the office every day but equally says there isn’t enough work so why do I need to be in every day when I can WFH. Others in the office also WFH freely. He wont tweak my hours to allow me to feed my baby at night. I have always performed well and it hurts a lot to know that the past 4 years were basically for nothing.

ps: how do I share my company's name?

THANK YOU! And wow that was a lot longer than I had hoped for!

Hi, I was made redundant recently at 27 weeks pregnant. I’ve been out on garden leave until my employment ends of 30th June. I do not get redundancy pay as I’ve only been with my employer a year.

My employer has decided to pay my SMP in a lump sum with my final salary payment on 30th of June.

my partner works but we still need to claim universal credit.

From July there will only be one source of regular income as I will technically be on maternity leave and my partner is the only one earning.

From July will I be considered unemployed or on maternity leave? Do I need to find employment to maintain my universal credit claims? Do I still get 52 weeks of maternity leave? What is my employment status now?

Thanks very much for this service.

I'm six months in to my planned 12 months of maternity leave. My employer is a mid-size business. I've been Head of a marketing function for the past two years with no other employees working this role. This week my employer has posted a job advert for a role of almost identical title to mine, where most of the job description matches my existing role. My existing role will report in to this new role.

I have been invited to apply for this role but have turned down the opportunity as it has to be full time hours. Note: I've not yet put in any request for part time working to my employer.

This means I am now potentially returning to work in December where the majority of my job has been given to a new person. While I've been assured my job won't change, the seniority is enormously reduced due to this new hire.

I currently report to another HoF who does not have any responsibility for my function.

Where do I stand and how best do I approach this? Am I right that this may be discrimination?

I am currently on maternity leave from 2 jobs. 1 full time (Job A)for which I am getting SMP and 1 part time which I am not entitled to SMP.

I am aiming to return to Job A in October but wanted to return to Job B sooner. Job B have said that I can only do 10 KIT shifts and not return to work fully as I’ll be classed as returning to work and therefore will not be entitled to SMP from Job A. I have been working at both jobs for a few years.

Is this the case? I thought I could return earlier to Job B? Any advice would be really helpful.

Thank you

Hi, Thank you for offering this support. I emailed these two questions to HR in my company on 3/11/22. I never received a reply and these questions went unanswered:

"Regarding KIT days and from what I’ve read on the gov.uk website, please confirm two things:

• Any KIT days that I take will not affect or reduce my OMP or SMP; any KIT pay will be additional to my calculated OMP and SMP.
• As I have two separate contracts with the same employer, and my SMP payments are split with separate maternity pay forecasts, I am provided ten KIT days (if each manager agrees) in both my *** job and my ***job; 20 KIT days in total across both roles (10 KIT days per role)."

I have therefore relied on the information in their current 'Maternity and Family Leave Policy' and the information on gov.uk. I have undertaken 7 KIT days in one job up to now (since 20/4/23). I have recently queried my pay (too low) and have been informed that my SMP, which I still receive, will be offset against my KIT day pay. Their policy does not state this and instead says that my SMP pay will be unaffected when undertaking up to 10 KIT days. I would not have worked KIT days if I knew this was the case. My line manager is in agreement with me and is now liaising with HR in order to get my SMP paid to me additionally to my KIT day pay. However, there seems to be no progress on this. I have also not received an answer regarding 10 KIT days in each separate job. Please advise. Many thanks

I am currently on the final 6 months of 12 months maternity leave.

My employer gives an enhanced rate of maternity pay after a minimum service length before the pregnancy begins (which I met this time around).

I wish to begin trying to have another child but am unsure if time on maternity leave legally counts as part of service length? Ie if I am able to get pregnant while still on Maternity leave and return to work after 12 months off, and already pregnant, are they able to decline a second period of maternity saying I was not in service when I become pregnant?

Thanks very much for your help.

My company has decided to close its final salary pension scheme and part of the agreement reached is that the company will make some additional transitional payments into our new pension scheme. These transitional payments are to be made over the course of the next 8 years and are calculated as 5% of pensionable earnings each year.

Already payment for 1 year has been drastically impacted by maternity leave, and it is quite probable that I may have another maternity leave within this 8 year window. I accept that my pensionable contributions drop whilst on maternity leave, but is it fair that I also loose out on this 5% transitional payment that others will get? I feel the transitional payment should be calculated based on my full time equivalent hours. Am I right? Any advice?

Thanks in advance for any help- it is much appreciated!

My company has decided to close its final salary pension scheme and part of the agreement reached is that the company will make some additional transitional payments into our new pension scheme. These transitional payments are to be made over the course of the next 8 years and are calculated as 5% of pensionable earnings each year.
As an example, both myself and partner (Who works here) decided that we would take our 5% lump sum in January which is part of the transitional clause (We can take our 1 off, 5% lump sum each year) We thought that we would get around £1500 each. I received £685, while my partner received the full amount (I had been on maternity leave, however I didn't think my transitional payment would be more than halved)
To put into perspective, if I had have been on sick leave instead of maternity leave, I would've received 5% of 80% of my concurred sick leave. Maternity is being equated to; no contributions being made the same as unpaid sick, career break, unpaid leave, etc.

Also, when the pension transition happened from one company to the other, the average amount of contribution to the pension was what you had contributed in the previous 3 years of service. At this stage, as a young mother, I had reduced my hours (Even though I had contributed to the company on full time hours for the previous 10 years) my pension contribution was only being taken over the previous 3 years of service-which was the only time I had worked part-time hours.

On a side note, the paternity allowance is an absolute disgrace for being a UK based, large industrial company, 1 day full pay. Surely this is absurd??

Currently on annual leave after finishing maternity leave and being made aware my role will be made redundant. I believe I have a case for discrimination as I had numerous issues throughout my pregnancies and maternity. If entering a settlement agreement is it worth paying a solicitor to write a letter for me? My employer only offered small amount to cover legal cost.

My partner is self employed and therefore had no maternity entitlement. I questioned if enhanced paternity should be allowed in my organisation as it is for most government (home office) departments being under the same umbrella. HR didn’t grasp the question and the union indicated it should be allowed. As the due date loomed, my line manager agreed to pursue the matter and authorised the leave - HR sent one email stating the current policy but no instructions whilst I was already off and thus it was never received.
Whilst off I was reduced in rank without explanation. Having left it in the hands of superiors I returned to be told no such enhanced leave had been authorised (and not even SPL was entitled as the forms had not been filled in, something my line manager instructed as there wasn’t an appropriate form for what was being requested at the time). As a result I was deemed to have received a large overpayment whilst off and accused of gross misconduct. Despite passing a promotion process during the leave, I was then dismissed.
What should the leave now be labelled as? In terms of the pay received how can I possibly work out any over payment? Considering the reduction in rank affecting the rate of pay, the leave taken in good faith and subsequently rescinded and any outstanding annual leave or other entitlements.
I’m also aware of a similar instance within the same organisation involving a female for which a repayment plan was the resolution and no disciplinary action taken.

So grateful for this service, the timing couldn’t be better!

My company has recently announced dramatic redundancies (~40% staff) largely getting rid of my entire sector. We are currently in the 30 day consultation period which ends at the beginning of July after which official redundancy letters will be sent throughout the month of July.
I am currently 33 weeks pregnant and will be nearing my due date at the end of July which is when I was planning on starting my Mat leave.
I’ve been informed that all enhanced maternity pay will no longer be
paid once I’ve been terminated. I’m aware that my SMP is protected however I had never budgeted for SMP alone (which alone covers less than 1/3 of my rent).
My questions are:

• Can my employer stop me from starting my Mat leave effective immediately so that I can utilise some of my enhanced leave before being terminated? Is it discriminatory if they prevent me from doing this?
• Do I have any additional protection if I start Mat leave immediately? Although they are making my sector redundant they are curiously advertising for 2 positions internally. Am I entitled to be put forward for these roles?
• I am the only employee on the cusp of starting Mat leave, can I negotiate payment of my enhanced Mat pay as part of my redundancy package? Any advice on how to pursue this? How is not discriminatory to offer all employees the same redundancy package (eg 2 months gardening leave) when I am in the worst position possible to seek alternative employment so am currently at a huge disadvantage compared to my other colleagues.

Thank you for all and any advice, this has been a hugely distressing time and I’m unable to get any clarity from HR until after the consultation period ends by which I will almost be ready to pop which is adding to the stress and uncertainty of it all.

Thank you for this service! Please could you help me understand whether I need to split my 12 month maternity leave entitlement with my husband.

I have 6 months enhanced maternity pay from my company and then qualify for a further 6 months statutory leave/pay.

My husband has 4 months enhanced paternity leave from his company but does not qualify for statutory leave/pay as he only joined his company 4 months before my due date. Nonetheless, he is able to take his 4 months at full pay from his company and is able to split his 4 months so he will take 1 or 2 weeks a month over 12 months.

Do we need to split my 12 month leave entitlement between us? So if he takes 16 weeks, I can only take 36 weeks? Or can I take 52 weeks and he takes his 16 weeks at the same time?

Many thanks

Claire

Hello, I’m currently on maternity leave and due back in October. I contacted my work place KIT days and I was told they are no longer offering them however when I left I was told they were available. Are KIt days something the work place has to offer?

I’m self employed, is there any kind of paid parental leave I could take? (My wife is a full time teacher and is planning on having 9 months maternity leave of the 12 months she’s entitled to.)

I was hired on a one year fixed contract, starting in September 2022. This contract has recently been extended until May 2024. It has been discussed many times with my manager that there is no danger of my job not being secure but that the reason it wasn't made permanent yet was because of budgets (he seemed pretty confident that next time round it would be made permanent). I have just found out that I am pregnant, due in February 2024, so 3 months before my contract is due to finish (actually around the time we would be submitting for me to extend again or make permanent). My employer offers an enhanced maternity package of full pay for 12 weeks, half pay for 27 weeks, unpaid (statutory) for the final 13 weeks. My questions are:

1. this is my dream job, I've worked my whole life to get this job and finally landed it! Having discussed previously that my contract would probably be made permanent or atleast extended again, what are my rights if they choose to end my contract in May 2024 when I announce I am pregnant. My worry is that they will choose not to extend/make permanent, despite previous discussions, because I will be off for up to a year, although they'd obviously never say as much!
2. if the contract does sadly end in May 2024, would I be moved onto statutory maternity pay from that date onwards rather than the enhanced package.

Hello, I am currently employed to cover someone’s mat leave, with a possibility to stay on after (this is yet to be discussed) I am now expecting.
Am I entitled to smp?

Dear Rolo7

I am sorry to hear this. It must have come as quite a shock.

The first question to determine is whether in fact a redundancy situation exists as a matter of law. If it is the case that 80% of your role has been redistributed amongst the rest of the team, this would suggest that the role itself may be redundant on the basis that the ‘requirements of the business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind have ceased or diminished.’

However, even if a redundancy situation exists, your employer should have gone through a fair process before selecting you for redundancy. This would involve provisionally selecting you, consulting with you about your potential redundancy, whether or not there are alternatives to making you redundant and also if any suitable alternative vacancies exist, before confirming the decision. It appears from your email that your role may be a stand alone one but if there are other employees performing the same or similar roles to yours, then a fair process would involve creating a pool of the employees in these roles and applying fair and objective criteria to select one of the employees as redundant. The lack of any fair process would of itself give grounds for an unfair dismissal claim. It would be necessary to have more information to be able to advise more particularly, but if the reason for your selection was because you were on maternity leave, this would make your dismissal automatically unfair and also give rise to a maternity discrimination claim.

If a redundancy situation arises during your maternity leave and "it is not practicable by reason of redundancy" for your employer to continue to employ you under your existing contract, you have the right to be offered a suitable alternative vacancy if one exists. Although the law is changing so that it will apply for 6 months after a woman returns from maternity leave this may not be introduced until April 2024, at present it only applies if the redundancy arises during your maternity leave. The fact that you were told you were being made redundant 3 weeks after your return might mean you do not benefit from this positive duty, however, given the redistribution of work which led to the redundancy situation occurred during your maternity leave, there is certainly an argument that it does. Either way, you should still be considered for an alternative role if a suitable one exists.

We would need further, more detailed information, in order to advise more particularly on the type and strength of any claims but it is clear that there is scope for potential claims. In the first instance, I would raise questions with your employer about your selection, including when the decision was made and on what basis and why you were not informed or consulted with beforehand. Also, if appropriate (ie if there are other employees performing similar roles) why they were not also considered alongside you before the selection was made and what, if any, selection criteria were used. If your employer allows you to, I would advise you lodge an appeal against the decision to make you redundant and raise the questions as part of that process. Otherwise, if they do not allow you the right to appeal, you can raise these questions separately.

Depending on what your employer comes back with, you may wish to explore the possibility of bringing a claim. There are strict time limits for starting a claim and you must contact ACAS to start early conciliation within three months (less one day) from the date of the act or series of acts you are complaining about. There is more information on how to take it forward here:
maternityaction.org.uk/where-to-go-for-more-help-legal-clinic/ maternityaction.org.uk/where-to-go-for-more-help-legal-clinic/]]

Ultimately, you are very unlikely to get reinstated by your employer once the decision has been made but if your objective is to secure some sort of financial package, or improve on what is already on offer, raising the possibility of claims with your employer may provide leverage to do this. ACAS can help you to reach an agreement with your employer.

Dear Pepemac

Thank you for your query. Shared parental leave is a complex scheme. As you state, you can take the first 2 weeks of paternity leave immediately after the birth but any shared parental leave can only be created by your wife reducing her maternity leave and pay and transferring any untaken leave and pay to you.
There are two different entitlements - your statutory (legal) rights and your contractual rights. Contractual rights are enhanced benefits provided by your individual employers. It is up to individual employers as to whether they provide additional pay and they can set their own terms and conditions such as return to work requirements. It is very important to read the Ts and Cs in your employer's policy carefully as many shared parental pay schemes are not as generous as they look.

The shared parental pay policy for the NHS is online here and you should also check for any local policy for your Trust: [[https://www.nhsemployers.org/publications/tchandbook
The section on shared parental pay can be found at section 15.60 & 15.61

The statutory scheme would allow your wife to remain on maternity leave and to receive enhanced maternity pay for 4 months then SMP. She could reduce her maternity leave and the final 5 weeks of SMP and transfer 5 weeks to you to take as shared parental leave and pay. You meet the qualifying conditions for shared parental leave (SPL) and Statutory Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) and you could take those 5 weeks of SPL/ShPP whenever you choose in the year from your baby's birth. You can also take SPL/ShPP at the same time as your wife is on maternity leave/pay. However, please note you must give at least 8 weeks notice for taking SPL so unless you have already given notice you may have to ask your employer to exercise their discretion to accept shorter notice if you wish to start SPL at the end of July.

Under the statutory scheme, your ShPP is only paid at the flat rate of £172.48 pw (or 90% of earnings if lower) - this is regardless of whether you or wife take it or you both take it together.

Under the contractual scheme, the NHS (and many employers) deduct any weeks of enhanced maternity pay and SMP taken by your wife from your entitlement to enhanced shared parental pay - see section 15.61. This means that if your wife takes the 4 months of enhanced maternity pay and then at least 2 months of SMP it will remove your entitlement to 26 weeks full and then half pay. Any weeks of shared parental leave that you take will be paid at the ShPP rate of £172.48.

As your wife is entitled to enhanced maternity leave she would be better off staying on maternity leave and pay unless her employer also offers some fully paid shared parental leave. She should check her employer's shared parental leave and pay policy (if they have one). Otherwise she will only be entitled to ShPP of £172.48 per week. She must take the first 2 weeks of compulsory maternity leave which would be paid at full pay under her employer's maternity policy but if she then moves to shared parental leave, the rest of her leave will be paid at £172.48. In this scenario your employer would only be able to reduce the contractual shared parental pay you are entitled to by 2 weeks but it is unclear if this would be financially beneficial for you both.

I would suggest contacting your HR team to see if they have a local shared parental leave policy and check the terms and conditions for enhanced pay. Your wife will also need to check whether she has any rights to enhanced shared parental pay before giving notice to curtail her maternity leave and pay as she may be significantly worse off moving from maternity pay to shared parental pay.

I hope that helps.

Dear Blabbermouth96

I am sorry to hear of your redundancy. To answer your questions about claiming Universal Credit, you will be treated as unemployed from the date that your employment ends on 30th June. This will also bring your maternity leave to an end as you no longer have the right to any contractual benefits or to return to your job. You have qualified for SMP for 39 weeks even though your job has ended. If you start a new job within 39 weeks you will have to repay any remaining weeks of SMP to your former employer.

As you are being paid 39 weeks SMP in a lump sum this will be treated as earnings for your Universal Credit claim. As Universal Credit is based on your reported earnings in each monthly assessment period, you are unlikely to receive any Universal Credit in the month in which your lump sum SMP is paid but for the following months you will be treated as having zero income and Universal Credit will only take into account your partner's earnings.

If you are the nominated main carer, you are not required to look for work with a baby under one. There are some work search requirements if you have a child under three. So, in summary, you will be unemployed from 30 June, you are not required to look for work in the 11 weeks before your baby is due or with a baby under one. Your SMP will only be taken into account in the monthly assessment period in which it is paid but as you have been paid SMP for 39 weeks from 30 June 2023, please bear in mind you would have to repay any weeks of SMP if you start a new job within that period.

I hope that helps.

Thank you so much, this is extremely helpful. x