Maternity pay for offshore umbrella??

**MarillionFan** · 20 September 2006, 08:34

[Commas,Punctuation & Spelling Off]
Did they say they dont know, or that they cant help you?
[/Commas,Punctuation & Spelling Off]

**Meady** · 20 September 2006, 08:36

This was their response;

'With regard to your email, unfortunately we, being a Guernsey
registered company, are unable to assist you with maternity pay.'

Thanks

**oraclesmith** · 20 September 2006, 08:50

They don't have to. You are an employee of a Guernsey company regardless of where you are working. If it's not in the terms and conditions you got in your contract of employment, then you don't get it.

http://www.gov.gg/ccm/cms-service/do...set_id=2139051

**Cowboy Bob** · 20 September 2006, 08:53

Who's going to pay it? You are a contractor not an employee, and as far as I know it's employers that are normally the conduit for things like this. You should be entitled to your statutory pay from somewhere, but I'm not sure if you can claim it direct from the DHSS. If not, I guess you're sh!t out of luck.

**oraclesmith** · 20 September 2006, 09:11

If she's umbrella'd then she's an employee of the umbrella, unless she's on a managed limited basis. A lot depends on where she's paid her national insurance contributions and how long she's been employed by a Guernsey firm before requiring maternity pay. There is no SMP payable in Guernsey, as far as I know, as it's a UK idea, but there may be a maternity allowance. There is no maternity allowance or grant in the UK anymore. There are some reciprocal arrangements in place, but entitlement may take some working out !

**tim123** · 20 September 2006, 09:51

1) Do you guys (and grls) really think that the location of the company is the factor that decides whether a person is entitled to pa/maternity pay? Can EDS say to their UK based employees "we are a US company so it's nothing to do with us?", No,they can't. It's the (permanent) location of the worker that critical to employment rights, not the location of the employer.

2) But, who pays it? This is a big problem and it's one that could just bring down the 'managed' sector should someone try and claim their 'due'.

It is, IMHO, undeniable that people working through (UK based) Managed Service companies are entitled to claim such payments. So, where does the money come from? It can't come from the Managed Service company's income, because it doesn't really have enough, all it has is the contractor's billings from which it needs to hold back some funds for this possibility (in the same way as it ought to hold back funds for holiday pay).

But if it does this, some people are going to say, I don't have a partner so I'm never going to claim or I'm male and I get less back than a female does so I should have less deducted. Can the Managed Service company hold back different amounts depending upon each individual's personal circumstances? No it can't, as that would fall foul of Sex/Age/Marital Status Discrimination Laws.

So what should a Managed Service company do to solve this problem? I really have no idea, except to suggest that when asked, the MSC say "sorry due to some <suprious reason>, that's nothing to do with us" and hope that the punter goes away.

tim

**oraclesmith** · 20 September 2006, 11:21

Is you're an employee of a global firm, then your employment contract will be with a UK registered branch of that firm. EDS Limited, for example. If you then got sent to India for 6 months you aren't suddenly able to claim Indian government sickeness benefits (not that there are any!).

If you actually have an employment contract with a company registered outside the UK then that company will be governed by the laws of the state they are registered in. And so will your contract. There are some reciprocal arrangements re. national insurance and certain benefits between the channel islands and the UK, but they depend on length of contributions amongst other things. The tax avoiders that get a channel islands umbrella have only got themselves to blame if they can't get UK taxpayers to bale them out when things go wrong.

The umbrella's abroad simply don't have to pay anything unless their government insists on it. The umbrella's in the UK probably have to pay SMP but nothing else. They all probably have insurance to cover this eventuality. UK umbrella's like other employers can reclaim the SMP from the government. In my opinion.

**tim123** · 20 September 2006, 12:47

I would agree with you if the employee had been subcontracted to the host country from another country.

But this isn't the case.

The employee lives in the UK, has always lived in the UK, is currently working at a location in the UK and has no links of any kind with the employer's home country.

I can't see that moving the holder of the employment contract to another county allows the employer to ignore UK employment rules for staff permanently based in the UK . Anybody could set up a 'lets get around employment rules' scam company like this, if it worked.

tim

**MarillionFan** · 20 September 2006, 12:52

You don't have a weekly article on the BBC do you?

Maternity pay for offshore umbrella??