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Changes to your maternity and paternity rights
A number of changes to employee maternity and paternity laws were introduced in April 2008, under a piece of legislation called the Work and Families Act 2006. Those of you who have looked into your maternity or paternity rights will have discovered that this area of the law is rather complex, and can seem very confusing
Maternity Leave
All women are now allowed up to 52 weeks maternity leave regardless of their length of service (26 weeks ordinary maternity leave and 26 weeks additional maternity leave).
This does away with the old rules which allowed all women to have 26 weeks ordinary maternity leave, and a complex formula for calculating the rest which was based on sufficient service time; you needed to have racked up 26 weeks of continuous service by the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth. Roughly speaking, you had to fall pregnant after starting work to qualify. The same changes have been made to the entitlement for ordinary and additional Adoption Leave.
Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP)
Since April 2007, there has been a large increase in the period when statutory maternity pay is paid, rising to 39 weeks from the previous 26-week entitlement. This means that if you decide to take additional maternity leave, you can now receive an extra 13 weeks of SMP during this period (which previously was entirely unpaid).
Further changes expected under the Act are that women will be eventually paid 52 weeks SMP which means that they will receive SMP for their entire maternity leave period. This will allow more women to take advantage of the whole additional maternity leave period.
Keeping in touch
The Act also brought in a new system of Keeping in Touch days, allowing women to do up to 10 days work with their employer on the odd occasion during maternity leave, without losing their right to remain on maternity leave.
Returning to work after maternity leave can be a daunting experience, considering it is frequently after a year's absence, and in some cases even longer (if, for example, you have had successive pregnancies). One of the intentions behind the Keeping in Touch days was to allow women to attend training and presentations to get used to any changes that may have come in during the maternity absence and also to ease back into work.
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