Hi all,
Sorry if I have posted this in the wrong place, I was not sure where this type of query would sit!
I am asking this on behalf of a friend:
My friend commenced working with a UK organtization on Monday 03 August 2020, prior to this she had worked with the same organization but via an Agency. She was TUPE'D over and instead was hired as at 03/08/2020. A while later she found out she was pregnant and did not qualify for SMP as the required eligibilty required her to have a hire date of 01/08/2020.
She went onto maternity allowance instead and returned to work 5 months later due to the payments messing with some benefits she was in receipt of (she has 1 other slightly older child, but I did not ask too many questions relating to the beenfits). As she was on maternity allowance she lost out on her employer pension scheme where the employer pays their full contributions based upon full time salary during maternity paid absence period.
Fast forward to a few months ago and the organization has had some feedback with people losing out on salary if they start on the first weekday of a month (as the salary is paid Annual Salary/12 months/days in month x days from hire date to period end).
She disputed her own hire date based upon this and they agreed to backdate her hire date and pay her anything owed. She has since received payment for the 2 days (01 and 02 August 2020), but no letter/contract adjustment.
She is now querying her maternity pay with the employer as she would have, based on the adjusted start date, been eligible for SMP. The GOVUK website suggests that the employer should pay if your circumstances change and you meet the eligibilty criteria.
She is fully aware that if the employer were to pay she would need to also pay back any Maternity Allowance she received, but she is more interested in the 6 weeks at 90% and the pension that she lost out on.
Apparently, the employer are refusing to pay. She is reaching out to ACAS and GOVUK directly when their phone lines are up, but I wanted to see if anyone could help at all?
I work in Payroll myself which is why my friend has came to me, but I would be under the impression the Employer has to pay. I have never had any dealing with this directly so feel out of my depth.
All help/infomraiton/links etc. is appreciated. Just tryng to pool together some bits for her.