SMP the weeks that 90% pay are based on

[MrsBoat]

I am not sure if my employeer are calculating my maternity pay correctly. I had a £1000 pay rise this year. The review and pay rise always starts in may but beacuse of the managers always being too busy it didn't happen until august pay slip where the pay rise was back dated.

I think that the 90% pay has been based on my weekly earnings this summer and they are basing it on my old pay level. Is this correct, even though my pay rise was backdated?

I am not sure since I have one week full pay now in december and the rest 90% and I am not sure if the pension is deducted or not so I am finding it difficult to check if their calculations are correct or not.

My employer is outsourcing the payroll and they never got it right with my study deductions, they missed a few deductions so this was also corrected in june, but they took too much which I got back in july, does this also affect my weekly earnings?

 

[Meredith2010]

Generally speaking and in most cases, the 90% of earnings for 6 weeks is based on your average weekly earnings during the Relevant Period. The Relevant Period is the period of roughly 8 weeks up to and including the last pay day before the end of the qualifying week (Qualifying Week being 15 weeks before the start of the week in which your baby is due).

So what you need to do is:

1) Get the date of your Qualifying Week (select the Monday of the week that your due date falls in, then count back 15 weeks from this)

2) Look at payslips to work out how much you earned in total during the 8 week leading up to the start of this Qualifying Week. If you are paid monthly rather than weekly, then it's the 2 pay dates prior to the start of your Qualifying Week.

3) Divide this figure by 8. This gives you your Average Weekly Earnings

Or go to https://www.gov.uk/maternity-paternity-calculator and this will do it for you.

Therefore you should get 90% of this Average Weekly Earnings figure per week for the first 6 weeks of your maternity leave. If you are paid monthly then you will get either 4 or 5 x this weekly figure depending on the month, but in total you will get 6 weeks of it before it drops down to the standard SMP (unless your Company pays enhanced SMP).

So what I'd do in your case is work out the figures as above and if it turns out that, for example, your Relevant Period was 8 weeks in June - July so when you SHOULD have had a payrise but weren't actually getting it, then you have a very good case to argue your point.

I hope this all makes sense. Feel free to PM me if you want more help (I work in HR) xx

Oh, and you need to look at the figure you were paid before any pension deductions were made, so you need to look at an actual payslip rather than the figure that was paid into your bank xx