Employed and a contractor - how does it affect maternity, if at all??

[Jenbot]

I?m getting a bit confused and lost and my HR Dept can?t seem to help me.

I?m employed full time, and want to take their scheme for maternity.
I am also a contractor for a separate company, where I do a few odd hours of work a month (or not, depending on how I feel).

Will my contracting work affect my maternity allowances or maternity pay from my main employer?

It would be a little helpful extra bit of money if I could carry on, so I?d like to, but if it would affect my maternity from my employer it won?t be worth it...

Who should I be asking for advice?

Thank you if anyone knows anything about this!!

Jenpot you should be absolutely fine to fdo that as you are already working for this other company.

It's a bit long-winded and complicated but I have copied and pasted the following paragraph from the workingfamilies website, it explains it reasonably well. It's from their factsheet maternity leave and pay. They also have a factsheet about atypical workers and maternity rights which you may find helpful.

Here you go

"If you work for another employer during maternity leave but before your baby is born, it will not affect your SMP. In addition, if you worked for more than one employer before the birth you can still get SMP from one, and return to work for the other, in certain circumstances. If you worked for employer A in the 15th week before your baby was due, you may start back at work for employer A after the birth without affecting your SMP from employer B (although you must inform them of what you are doing). However, if you did not work for employer A in the 15th week before the baby is due your SMP will stop in the week you start work. You can also do self employed or voluntary work without any loss of SMP. During unpaid maternity leave, you can work for another employer unless there is a clause in your contract limiting any other work. Working for more than ten days whilst you are getting MA can lead to you being disqualified from getting MA for as long as the DWP deems reasonable in the circumstances. "

Make sense?

I have a main job that I work 18 hrs/week and then I also work for my dh doing his paperwork etc for which I'm employed by his company.

Imagine my surprise when I was told I could get 2 lots of smp! I went back to dh's job earlier than my main job (mainly cause I was still doing the paperwork, not really had any maternity "leave" as such)

Thank you!

Hmm, I think it might mean that I can't carry on the contracting while I'm getting SMP, then once SMP is over, I can be paid again.

Because, "employer A" is a friend's company that I was kindly working for for free from January until the start of June, which was 13 weeks before my due date, not 15 weeks. It's only just been sorted out properly to pay me as the company is only just starting to make money.

Oh well - I'll probably go back to doing it for free again while I'm on SMP, it's not arduous and I quite like to help out!