flexible working request & maternity pay

[dinkyboysmum]

i am just writing a request to work part time (under flexible working), but am wondering how this will affect my maternity pay.

i am now 22 weeks pg, and have requested my part time hours to commence in april, when i am 27 weeks pg.

will my maternity pay (from 32 wks) reflect my part time hours, or my full time hours? i.e. will i get 90% of the full time salary, or 90% of the part time salary??

I should point out my part time hours only represent a four/five hour drop, nothing too significant!

(am i right in thinking maternity pay is calcualted between weeks 17-25??)

SMP is calculated between 17 and 25 weeks, that's correct, so your change wouldn't affect it. If you get anything over and above SMP, your employer can put whatever terms and conditions they like on it so you'll need to check.

thanks for the reply!
i get 6 weeks at 90% and then the normal £118 (or whatever it is)...so i would get 90% of my current full time salary then? unfortunatley dont get anything 'over and beyond'!!

also, if i just take 26 weeks maternity leave, i think i can go back to the same job i left. i.e. with the reduced hours (if they agree) si that correct?

Yes that's what you'd get.

And yes, assuming they agree to your request, those would become your permanent contractual hours, so those would be the hours you go back to. If you go back at or before 26 weeks it's to the same job, if you go back after that, it's the equivalent terms and conditions but might be a different job.

thanks so much for the reply on that...have been trawling websites all morning and trying to interpret it all, thought that was how i understood it too, but lovely to get reasurrance form someone else!

dinkyboysmum - I assume that you have children already (from the name!) and that this isn't your first? You have to actually have children to be eligible for a flexible working request.

yes! my first son was born premature (hence the name!), which is why i want to make sure i'm taking it easy with this pg (by reducing working hours)...was just concerned re:the financial arrangments.

Thought that was probably the case, but I thought I would check. I know a couple of people who have put in requests during pregnancy and then been very upset when they were told that they were not eligible...

BTW, I agree with what Flowery said. Because you only get SMP, it is based on your earnings between weeks 17 and 25, so it would all be based on your full time pay, since the part time doesn't come into force until 32 weeks.

Do bear in mind that you will only be accruing holiday at the rate of 3/5ths throughout your maternity leave though. You don't by any chance have enough holiday to use that to take you down to a three day week for five weeks (i.e. 10 days) do you? That way you could have your new arrangements in place from when you return and still have accrued holiday at full rate whilst off? You'd need to do all the numbers though - checking that using all that holiday now left you enough for when you came back and that your HR department were happy with the idea, etc...