New rights for maternity leave and pay

Published in Bottomline, Winter 2007

If your baby is due on or after 1st April 2007 you will have new rights to maternity leave and pay.

Maternity leave

From April 2007, all women who qualify for Ordinary Maternity Leave (OML) will also qualify for Additional Maternity Leave (AML).  AML will therefore be a right from day one of employment rather than a right available only to women who have completed six months’ service with their employer into the 15th week before the week their baby is due. All employed women, regardless of length of service therefore, will have the right to 12 months’ leave.

If you want to return to work before the end of the AML you will be required to give your employer eight weeks notice of your intention to return to work.  You have a right to return to the same job if you take up to 26 weeks maternity leave and this right will not change if you take AML (unless it is not reasonably practicable, in which case a similar job on terms and conditions which are no less favourable must be made available to you).

Maternity pay

Pregnant employees who meet qualifying conditions based on their length of service and average earnings and give the correct notice will be entitled to maternity pay for a longer period of time.  SMP and Maternity Allowance (MA) will be extended from six to nine months (39 weeks) from April 2007, with the aim of extending to a year by the end of the current Parliament (including extending eligibility for additional maternity leave);

Other proposed changes are:

1. The introduction of “keeping in touch” days.  By agreement with your employer you can work or undertake training or activities to enable you to keep in touch with the workplace for up to ten days during your maternity pay or allowance or adoption pay period.  If you participate in these “keeping in touch days” you will not lose payments for that week, and your leave will not  come to an end prematurely.   Any work must be by agreement and there is no right for an employer to demand that an employee does such work, or for an employee to have such work offered to her. Employees will be protected from being subjected to a detriment or dismissed for undertaking, considering undertaking, and not undertaking, any such work;
2. Fathers will have a right to a maximum of 6 months’ unpaid additional paternity leave (APL), if the mother returns to work before maternity leave ends.  There will be an entitlement to paternity pay at the flat rate for this period of APL but only if the mother returns to work before taking her full entitlement to SMP and MA;
3. Flexible working legislation will be extended to carers of adults. “Caring” will not be defined in legislation but will be dealt with in guidance.  “Carers” will include employees caring for an adult who they are married to, partners with or civil partners of as well as certain relatives and someone living at the same address as the carer.

For more information you can contact us on 0161 839 3888