The company should continue to make their employer pension contributions for the 39 weeks that the lady is receiving SMP. Employer contributions can cease after the 39 weeks until the employee returns to work.
As for the employees contribution, the lady has two choices as detailed below and ideally you should talk to her about these options before she goes off on her maternity leave:-
Option 1 – the employee can opt to have her percentage employee pension contributions deducted from her SMP payments in the months where her salary is sufficient to meet the minimum earnings to trigger for auto enrolment. As the earnings trigger is more than £112 per week, currently, it wouldl therefore be deducted for the first 39 weeks of the maternity leave.
Option 2 – the employee can make up the pension contribution paid in option 1, to be equivalent to the contribution she would have paid on her pre-maternity salary by making an additional pension contribution for the difference. Depending on the lady’s salary, this may involve her making an additional contribution each month to her pension provider if there is sufficient money to take the full amount from her SMP payments. |