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Maternity/Paternity/Adoption

I’m aware of the upcoming legislation relating to increased annual leave entitlement. What about someone who is off on maternity leave?

Employees on maternity leave retain their entitlement to statutory annual leave throughout ordinary and additional maternity leave. If the employee is also entitled to contractual annual leave she will continue to accrue this additional, contractual entitlement during both Ordinary and Additional Maternity Leave.

Statutory annual leave cannot be taken at the same time as maternity leave. Before an employee goes on maternity leave she may wish to consider taking any outstanding leave and perhaps delay the start of her maternity leave. Alternatively, it may be possible for her to take annual leave in the period between the expiration of maternity leave and the expiration of the leave year.

For women whose expected week of childbirth was on or after 5 October 2008:the distinction between ordinary and additional maternity leave was removed in respect of entitlement to non-pay benefits, eg contractual holiday entitlement, company cars, gym membership and mobile telephones


I am expecting a baby at the end of December and will be on maternity leave when my annual bonus is due to be paid in January. Will my bonus be affected?

The payment of bonuses during maternity leave has always been a tricky subject. The issue is whether the bonus amounts to “remuneration” and there is no simple answer.  The commonsense approach is that a bonus constitutes wages and salary and according to maternity legislation is not payable when on maternity leave.  However, there are a number of important exceptions.  Following changes this year to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, employers cannot reduce a bonus to take into account any time spent on compulsory maternity leave (the two week period immediately following the birth of a baby). If your bonus is contractual and the period in questions includes maternity leave, your employer can adjust the amount to take maternity leave into account.  If your bonus represents pay for work already done, your employer cannot avoid paying you simply because you are on maternity leave when it is due.            To complicate matters further, there is an argument that if a bonus is discretionary then it is neither wages nor salary, but a benefit and therefore payable as if the woman had not been on maternity leave at all. Until recently such a bonus would have been payable only in respect of the firs six months of “ordinary” maternity leave but for women whose babies were due on or after October 5, it is now also payable in relation to the subsequent six months of “additional” maternity leave.   I hear that there have been changes to the law on holiday entitlement and want to know exactly what my workers are entitled to. What are the changes? All workers are entitled to holiday leave from their first day on the job. The entitlement is 4.8 weeks annually, with part timers getting the same pro rata.  A week’s holiday pay is calculated according to the type of work performed:For workers on fixed hours and pay it equals the amount due for a normal week’s work. For workers on variable hours and pay, a week’s pay is based on the average earnings over the previous 12 weeks. When Christmas and New Year public holidays fall at a weekend, other week days are declared public holidays. Legally, paid time off does not have to be given for public holidays, but you can include this within your workers’ minimum leave entitlement if you like.  From October 2007 the entitlement increased to 4.8 times the normal working week and from April 2009 it will change to 5.6 times the normal working week for holiday years starting on or after this date.  By law you must set out leave and holiday pay entitlements within your workers’ written statement of employment. This will allow them to work out their own entitlement.  When people leave or if they have been dismissed, they are entitled to pay for any holiday they have accrued but not taken.


One of our employees is currently off on maternity leave. The department she was part of is really short staffed and we would like to try and get her to work a little to help out. We were wondering if the ‘keeping in touch’ days can be used and if we can ask her to work any more days?

As part of the changes made in April 2007 to maternity rights, 10 ‘Keeping In Touch’ (KIP) days were introduced, allowing an employee who is off on maternity to work for 10 days without losing her rights to maternity leave or pay. Unfortunately you cannot compel the employee to carry out these days as they were designed for the employee's benefit rather than for the employer's benefit (ie so they didn't feel "left out").

The rules are VERY strict over the payment of these 10 days. If an employee works even only one hour on a day (so for example comes in to collect something from the office to work on at home) then that day is counted as a full day for the purposes of payment of Keeping in Touch. So if you want to ask your employee to work, and she agrees, she can only work for any part of 10 days. For payroll purposes the payment must be inputted as days, equivalent to a day's pay. Additionally when paying for any KIP’s worked the day rate should have 1/7th of the SMP payable for that week. If any more than 10 days equivalent is put through payroll, SMP will stop.  


In our company, one role is covered by 2 employees on a rotating shift pattern.One is absent from work and is covered for the next 4 weeks with a fit note.The other person has asked for his paternity leave to start on the birth date of the baby,which is expected to be during week 2 of the other employees leave.This will leave the department without cover and it is a critical part of our business.Is there anything we can do to insist that the paternity leave is taken at a more suitable time?

Assuming that the employee qualifies for the paternity leave, and that the relevant procedures have been followed, there is nothing you can do to delay the paternity leave. Apart from asking the employee whether he would be willing to change his paternity leave request, there is no way of altering the timing of it.