Anyone Work in HR or UK Employment Law?
 

I know this is a funny thing to ask on the Ledge, but I'm desperate for advice on SMP and fixed-term contracts.

I am currently employed on a 12 month fixed-term contract with a well-known international company to cover someone else's maternity leave. Since starting with the company I have fallen pregnant and am due on 24th June.

After waiting several weeks for a copy of the companies maternity policy, the company have told me today that they won't be paying me maternity pay beyond the date my contract was due to end, 13th July. They're saying I'll have to claim from the government beyond that. As far as I can see on other websites, this is totally wrong, but I want some solid advice before I ask for another meeting with HR.

Any help or advice anyone can offer me would be greatly appreciated.

Hi. I do a lot of HR work and fixed term contracts for my work with a local authority. While maternity leave is often dealt with centrally since it involves both local and national agreements, I have dealt with some cases.

If your contract finishes on 13 July, you cease to be an employee of the company as of that date. No company will provide maternity pay (or any kind of pay) for someone who no longer works for them. However they will/must provide maternity pay from the date you stop working before your due date (24 June) and the 13th July. Since they are a large international company, they will have a maternity package that you are fully entitled to - but only for the period that you are under contract with the company.

You will also accrue holiday entitlement when you're on maternity leave between 24 June - 13 July. You can then claim this at the end of your contract (or it will be automatically paid to you with your final salary/paycheque).

As for claiming from the Government, that all depends on whether or not you have a job already set up from 13 July onwards. I'm not sure what the statitory maternity entitlement would be if you're not working at all. That would be a DWP matter so you'd be best contacting them.

I hope some of this helps and of course, feel free to double check alll of this before you ask for any more meeting with HR.

That's a great help, thank you. I found lots of info on various websites that seemed to be contradicting each other, so it's good to get info from someone who knows what they're talking about. It looks like what the company ae saying is correct, but at least I've had that confirmed now.

Thanks again. :)

Glad I could help. It's just general advice though, I'm not an HR specialist and maternity leave, especially the holiday entitlement accrued, can get quite complex so you should double check.

I work in the Shared Services (HR) centre for a major UK Government department. I can't speak for other organisations, but in our department, when an employee's contract ends whilst they are on maternity leave, the employee will continue to receive Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) until the end of the 39 weeks entitlement period.

I don't think the same applies in other organisations. You might be best off speaking to the citizens advice bureau or checking out the info on the direct.gov pages for more info.

Yes, I meant that you will get statutory pay but not an actual maternity package that the company provides of its own accord.