FCA Employee Handbook - Financial Conduct Authority

depends on your earnings and the amount of maternity leave you take. But as a general rule,you can expect to receive:higher rate SMP for the first six weeks (equal to 90 per cent of your average weeklyearnings in the qualifying period. The qualifying period is the eight-week periodimmediately preceding the 14th week before your EWC); andlower rate SMP for up to 33 weeks after that – see the HMRC website for current SMPrates.Our Payroll Team will give you details of your individual entitlement. SMP will be paid into yourbank account on the same date that your adjusted salary would have been payable and will besubject to deductions for tax and national insurance contributions in the usual way. If you donot qualify for SMP you may be entitled to claim state Maternity Allowance. The HR Helplinewill give you information on how to make a claim.Please note that you cannot receive both your SMP and basic pay within the same week.Therefore, if you return to work part-way through a week before the end of the 39 week SMPperiod, you will lose your SMP entitlement for that week. SMP is calculated in weeklyinstalments; however the start of the week can vary depending on the commencement date ofyour maternity leave.If you do decide to return “mid-week” before the end of your 39 week SMP period, you coulduse one of more of your 10 KIT days (see below), to avoid losing SMP as noted above.As well as SMP, you may be entitled to FCA enhanced pay – see the section FCA payments inaddition to Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP)Pay, benefits and your contract of employmentSubject to all the requirements set out above, the FCA will enhance your SMP to 100% pay inthe first 12 weeks of your maternity leave. See the FCA’s maternity webpages for furtherdetails.If you are on maternity leave (ordinary and/or additional), and providing you have given therequired notice as detailed above, you will be entitled to the following:All the contractual benefits which you were receiving immediately before you began yourmaternity leave will continue except remuneration (i.e. wages or salary and anycontractual allowances) (see sections on SMP and FCA enhanced payments above);Holiday entitlement will continue to accrue (see the holiday FAQs on My FCA Hub). Youshould use up your core holiday and bank holiday entitlement before you start OML or atthe end of your leave period (where possible in the same holiday year) before returning towork, i.e. tack your holiday onto the end of OML or AML. If you cannot take it at that timeyou can choose from the following options:1. Any outstanding holiday for the year which you cannot take before maternity leavestarts must be taken within 12 months of your return to work, or you will lose it; or2. Request via the HR Helpline that any accrued and untaken holiday in excess of thestatutory holiday entitlement (i.e. for full-time employees this is 20 of the core daysplus the normal 8 bank holidays; pro-rated for part-time employees) be bought backby the FCA. This sum will be paid at the end of your maternity leave period or anytime up to the end of the holiday year in which your maternity leave ends (see theHoliday Policy - “Holiday Payments” section for details of how this will be calculated).FCA Employee Handbook 2013 73