PART 4: STATUTORY PAYMENTS
Keeping-In-Touch (KIT) Days These were introduced April 2007 and allow for a woman to do up to a maximum of 10 days work or engage in up to 10 days of contact during her Maternity Leave Period without bringing her leave to an end, or losing any Statutory Maternity Pay or Maternity Allowance. KIT days are intended to help women to keep in touch with their workplace and ease their transition back into work, e.g. to allow for training. Any such work must be agreed both by the woman and the employer. Where an employee returns to work with at least a week’s equivalent of unused KIT days and before exhausting her full 52 week entitlement to leave or receiving 39 weeks’ SMP, the employer may continue to pay and recover SMP on the basis that the employee is utilising her KIT day entitlement. Where any work is performed in a week in excess of ten days, that week of SMP is lost. COPYRIGHT © 2021 THE CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PAYROLL PROFESSIONALS Qualification for pay In order to qualify for SMP, an employee must satisfy all the following conditions. She must: • have been continuously employed for at least 26 weeks continuing into the 15th week before the baby is due. The 15th week being known as the ‘Notification Week’ (Any part week during the 26 week period is rounded up) • have Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) in the eight weeks before the Notification Week of not less than the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL) • still be pregnant at the 11th week before the week the baby is due, or have had the baby by that time • provide medical evidence of the date her baby is due, at the Notification Week in the form of a MAT B1 or other equivalent evidence (see below) • have stopped working for her employer (wholly or partly because of pregnancy) • give notice of the date her Maternity Pay Period is due to start at least 28 days (21 days prior to April 2003). Where this is not practical, notice must be given as soon as reasonably practical. Evidence of Pregnancy The employee must provide medical evidence of the date the baby is due; normally by submission of a form MAT B1. Payment of SMP must not commence until the medical evidence has been received. An employer may accept certificates issued from the 20th week before the EWC (period increased from 14 to 20 weeks on 28th September 2001). No printing, copying or reproduction permitted. N.B. where all the above conditions are met the employee qualifies for receipt of SMP, even if she does not intend to return to work after the baby is born. Once she has qualified, should she leave, SMP is due regardless of her reason for leaving until she takes another job with an employer who did not employ her at the notification week. An employer should not accept medical evidence issued more than 20 weeks before the week the baby is expected. The date of issue is the date it was signed by the doctor or midwife. Employers may not be able to obtain an original copy of the MATB1. In circumstances where other employers are involved in determining a woman’s entitlement to SMP an employer may have to accept a copy of the MATB1.
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