MATERNITY - 15.02.2018

Why must you respond to notice of maternity leave plans?

MATERNITY LEAVE NOTIFICATION

To take advantage of the right to maternity leave, regulation 4 Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999 (SI 1999/3312) (MPLR) states that the employee must, no later than the end of the 15th week before her expected week of childbirth (EWC) (or, if that’s not reasonably practicable, as soon as is reasonably practicable), notify you of:

• her pregnancy and her EWC; and
• the date on which she intends her ordinary maternity leave (OML) to start - but this can’t be a date earlier than the beginning of the eleventh week before her EWC.

Pro advice 1. OML is a period of 26 weeks’ leave available to all employees who give birth and comply with the notification conditions.

Pro advice 2. You can ask that the employee gives you written notification of the date on which she intends to start her OML.

EMPLOYER’S FORMAL RESPONSE

Once you’ve received notification of the date the employee has chosen to start her OML, under regulations 7(6) and (7) MPLR you have 28 days to notify her of the date on which her additional maternity leave (AML) will end.

Pro advice 1. AML follows immediately after the end of OML and lasts for up to a further 26 weeks, giving a total entitlement of 52 weeks’ maternity leave, and is available to all employees.

Pro advice 2. If the employee subsequently changes the date she wishes her OML to start, you must notify her of the new AML end date within 28 days of the start of her leave. If OML is triggered automatically by pregnancy-related absence in the four weeks before the EWC or by premature birth, you must notify her of the new AML end date within 28 days of receiving notification of absence or birth.

Pro advice 3. There’s no requirement for your notification to be in writing, but we advise that it is because of the potential consequences if the employee claims she wasn’t notified of the AML end date.

EMPLOYER’S NON-COMPLIANCE

If you fail to notify the employee of the AML end date within this 28-day timescale, under regulation 11(5) MPLR she’s not then obliged to give you the normal eight weeks’ advance notice if she wishes to return to work earlier than the end of her AML. Effectively, she can just turn up to work on an earlier date and you would have no right to postpone her return to such a date as would give you eight weeks’ notice. You would also be contractually obliged to pay her wages from her actual return date, even if you’ve no work for her to do because you still have someone covering for her.

Pro advice. As soon as the employee has notified you of her intended OML start date, issue a written acknowledgement of notification of maternity leave letter (see Follow up ). Don’t wait to do this or you could miss the 28-day deadline. Do the same in relation to adoption leave (see Follow up ).

In addition, if you failed to give the employee any notice at all of the AML end date and she reasonably believed that her AML hadn’t ended, or if you gave her less than 28 days’ notice of the AML end date and it wasn’t reasonably practicable for her to return on that date, she’s protected against both detriment and dismissal for her failure to return to work on time, so you couldn’t discipline her for returning late after AML in these circumstances.

Acknowledgement of notification of maternity leave letter

Acknowledgement of notification of adoption leave letter