KIT days and SMP

Hey does anyone know if I work a KIT day does this come off my SMP or will I be paid both? My HR department was not clear which makes me worried. Thanks!

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For those 10 days you should get your full day rate salary even if you only work half a day

You get it on top of the smp. So you'll get smp plus a full day's pay

Depends on your company, some good companies will add the full kit day pay on top of your SMP, some will top up that days SMP to your full kit day pay, so you won’t lose a full weeks SMP but you might lose a day of it so to speak. There isn’t actually anything legally mandated about how companies must process kit day pay other than they must ensure you receive at least minimum wage for the hours you worked xx

This website explains it a lot better: https://maternityaction.org.uk/advice/keeping-in-touch-days/

@Sofia this is actually not true, it is just considered good practice to do this so most companies do.

On the company I work for KIT days are paid on top of your SMP payment. In my example for each day worked I had £100 extra on my payslip which was a nice bonus😊

My company takes it off of SMP so I’m effectively working for free and paid no extra for the time worked. I’m also only paid for the hours worked, not a full day rate as mentioned above. Definitely get them to clarify beforehand

@Rebecca I would query this with them as you need to at least be paid minimum wage for the hours worked and that can’t include the SMP part of the payment which is £26.29 a day, so if you worked 7.5hrs you need to be paid a minimum of £112.09 (if over 21) for that day plus then £157.74 for the rest of the weeks SMP.

@Rochelle I did query it with them at the time (my maternity leave in 2022) and they confirmed its correct. So this time I won’t be doing any KIT days until my SMP runs out. They were also being dodgy and not alllowing us to accrue bank holidays which I fought tooth and nail and got them to change, but in too tired to fight them on this one. I’ll just wait

@Rebecca it might be worth reaching out to ‘pregnant then screwed’ to see if you have a case against them then as they definitely can only offset it against one days SMP, not the whole amount, and have to ensure you get minimum wage for the hours worked. If you click on the link I posted in a comment above it explains it all a bit better than I can 😊 and yes you should definitely be accruing all your contracted holidays including BHs.

@Rochelle thank you. I’ve checked the link and it makes sense. That’s definitely not how they worked it out for me before. I’ll ask them now how pay is calculated for KIT days and see what they say