What to do now

The impetus is on the employee to make the claim for additional SMP payment. 

If you are contacted by an employee the first thing you will need to do is make sure the claim is valid:

• Is the date the claim was made to you within 6 years of the employee receiving SMP from this employer?
   
• If the employee is a leaver, is their leaving date within 6 months of the date the claim was made? 
    
• Was there a pay rise awarded to the employee with an effective date within the start of the ‘set period’ used for average earnings and the end of her maternity leave?
   
• Was this pay rise not taken into account to calculate the average earnings?

If the answer to all of the above is yes then the employee will be entitled to claim an additional payment for SMP.  The next stage is to identify how much extra is due and make the relevant payment.  Remember you will need to take into account all relevant pay rises in recalculating the additional SMP. 
 

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