For the purposes of this page, we’ll take full-time as being 24 hours a week or more. If your partner works less than 24 hours a week things can get quite complicated and I recommend that you seek further advice.

Because your partner works 24 or more hours a week you are not going to be entitled to Income Support, if for no other reason. However there are some things you are entitled to, and other things you might be entitled to.

Statutory Maternity Pay

Technically this isn’t a benefit. It’s really a sort of minimum wage for women on maternity leave. Here’s the key details:

• You need to have been employed, without any breaks, for at least 26 weeks until the 15th week before the week in which your baby is due;
• You normally need to earn on average £113 per week;
• There’s eleven weeks or less before the baby is due;
• You get it from your employer. If you want it you must ask your employer at least 15 weeks before the baby is due.
• You can get Statutory Maternity pay for 39 weeks: the earliest you can get it is 11 weeks before the baby is due.
• You are entitled to 90% of your normal gross earnings for the first 6 weeks;
• You are then entitled to £145.18 per week, or 90% your normal gross earnings, whichever is smaller, for the remaining 33 weeks.

Maternity Allowance

This is a sort of consolation prize if you’re not entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay. You need to fit the following rules:

• You must have been employed, or self-employed, for 26 weeks out of the 66 weeks before the week in which your baby is due;
• Your average weekly earnings, over any 13 weeks of this 66 weeks, are £30 per week or more. You can choose which weeks to use, and the weeks don’t have to all be next to each other;
• Unlike Statutory Maternity Pay, you claim this from the Jobcentre Plus, not your employer.
• Like Statutory Maternity Pay, you can get Maternity Allowance for 39 weeks: the earliest you can get it is 11 weeks before the baby is due.
• You are entitled to £145.18 per week, or 90% of your average gross earnings , whichever is the smaller.

If you are employed in the 15th week before the baby is due the Jobcentre Plus will expect you to apply for Statutory Maternity Allowance from your employer first: if your employer does not give you this they should give you a form (SMP1) to show the Jobcentre Plus.

Child Benefit

• To get this, you need to have a child. Not very surprising, I know, but this means that you cannot get this until the baby is actually born.
• It’s the key benefit, because you need it to show the other benefits offices that you have a child.
• Unless your annual income (not including your partner’s) is more than £50,000, the amount you get is fixed: everyone gets the same. The current weekly amount is £20.70 for your first child (you get an extra £13.70 for each other child): this means, for example, that if you’ve just had twins you’ll be entitled to £34.40 per week.
• You claim it from part of Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC for short) called the Child Benefit Office.
• You may get a claim form with the ‘bounty pack’ you’re given after the baby is born, but if you don’t you can either claim it online or by phoning the Child Benefit Helpline on 0300 200 3100.

Tax Credits

• Child Tax Credit: again, to get this you need to have a child. Normally getting Child Benefit should be enough to show this.
• Working Tax Credit: to get this your partner (or both of you together) needs to be in what the government call ‘full time work’: for a couple with children this means at least 24 hours per week, provided one of you works at least 16 hours per week.
• You are treated as being in full time work while you are on ordinary maternity leave, although in some circumstances this doesn’t apply until the baby’s actually born. 
  
• Tax Credits are administered by part of Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs called the Tax Credit Office. Unlike Child Benefit, however, they also feel rather like a ‘tax-y’ sort of things. So when you claim them, they initially work out how much they expect you to be entitled to for the rest of the tax year, and then divide that into weekly chunks, and then check things again after the end of the tax year. One result of this is although I have given weekly amounts below, these are approximate, unlike the amounts I give for other benefits.
• This is where it gets a little bit complicated…
• The amount of Child Tax Credit you get depends on how many children you have, what other money you have coming in, and whether any of your children are disabled.
• The amount of Working Tax Credit you get depends on whether your partner (normally) works 30 hours or more per week, and what other money you both have coming in (in your case, this is probably your partner’s earnings).
• If you have savings, the interest on the savings counts as income: the savings themselves don’t affect the calculation.
• If your gross annual income between you is less than £6,420 per year (roughly £535 per month, or £123 per week), it doesn’t affect the amounts of tax credits that you get.
• If your gross annual income between you is more than £6,420 per year, your tax credits are reduced by 41p for every £1 above £6,420. They start by reducing your Working Tax Credit, and if that all gets ‘used up’ they then reduced your Child Tax Credit.
• Now, you need to remember here that the Tax Credit Office works things out on an annual basis. This means that initially the figure they use for your annual income is the income you received in the previous full tax year, not the amount you’re actually getting at the moment (your maternity pay).
• Let’s look at a fairly simple example to give you an idea of how things pan out…

If you want to get your tax credit calculations exactly right, you need to take into account of the fact that yearly amounts are scaled down to daily amounts, rounded up to the nearest whole penny, and they scaled up again. To make things easier to understand I ignore this complication in this website. The difference, in my opinion, is to small to be worth worrying about: for example, for a family with two non-disabled children the difference would be £1.00 over a whole year. However if you use my approach and your answers don’t exactly match the ones in the Tax Credit Office letters, this is why.

Two things have changed from 6th April 2017: Any new claims for Child Tax Credit made from this date will not include the £545 family element; There will be no extra child elements for any third or further children born after this date , whether the claim started after this date or not, unless the child was born as the result of rape, or what the government calls 'non-consensual conception'. How this will work in practice remains to be seen.

Jane was working 16 hours a week but is now on maternity leave: she has just had her baby: the baby was born on 7th May. She is 27 years old. Her partner, Ellie, is 30 years old and works 18 hours per week. They are all in good health and not disabled. Jane normally earns £230 per week gross, which works out as £11,993 per year. Ellie earns £243 per week gross, which works out as £12,671. They’ve both been in their current job for a couple of years. Jane’s maternity pay starts at the beginning of April and she gets it for the full 39 weeks, at £139.58. After that she returns to work on the same wages as before. As neither of them is working 30+ hours or more per week, they are not entitled to Working Tax Credit until the baby is born. They would initially receive no Child Tax Credit or Working Tax Credit, based on their previous year’s income. However when the award is finalised after the end of the year, taking into account Jane’s reduced income, it will turn out that although their income is too high for them to get any Working Tax Credit, they will be entitled to £1,110 Child Tax Credit over the year, which works out as about £21 per week. The Calculations: Maximum Child Tax Credit Annual entitlement: £545 (family element) + £2780 (child element) = £3,325 Maximum Working Tax Credit annual entitlement: £1,960 (basic element) + £2,010 (couple element) = £3,970 Annual Gross Income minus £6,420 = £18,244  (£11,993+12671-£6,420) 41% of £18,244 is about £7,480. We now need to reduce the maximum tax credit amounts by this figure. Unfortunately, as the Maximum Working Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit figures added together come to £7,295, which is less than £7,480, Jane and Ellie are not entitled to any Working Tax Credit or Child Tax Credit. But, after the year end the actual income figures need to be taken into account, and these will be less because Jane has only been getting £140.98 a week (her Statutory Maternity Pay) for 39 weeks of the year, and only received her normal pay for 13 weeks, her actual income for the year will be £8,488.22 instead of £11,993. This will reduce their overall income to £21,159.22. Annual Gross Income minus £6,420 = £14,739 (£21,159-£6,420) 41% of £14,684 is about £6,043. We now need to reduce the maximum tax credit amounts by this figure. As £6,043 is way more than £3,930 there isn’t going to be any Working Tax Credit at all. However the £6,045 has now shrunk to £2,073 (£6,043 - £3,970). The actual Child Tax Credit payable is the Maximum Child Tax Credit minus £2,050, which works out as roughly £1,252 (£3,325 - £2,073). By dividing this by 365 and multiplying them by 7 we see how this figure looks as a weekly amount: about £24 Child Tax Credit. Don’t forget, though, that Jane and Ellie won’t be getting this as weekly amounts because this will only get worked our after the year has ended.

This example above tells us that it’s very important to make a claim for tax credits even if you won’t initially be awarded anything from your previous year’s income, because you might be entitled to money when everything is finalised, but only if you make the claim in the first place. Remember that tax credits cannot be backdated more than a month.

Sure Start Maternity Grant

• This is different from the others, as it’s a one off payment: you are normally only entitled to it once, when you have your first baby.
• You can apply for it from 11 weeks before the baby is due to three months after the baby is born (this is the date the baby is actually born, not the date they were supposed to arrive). Do not leave it too late: if the Jobcentre Plus get it after three months after the baby’s born you will definitely not get a grant.
• You can’t get it unless you are also getting one of a list of other benefits: in your case, the ones I need to mention are Income Support and income-based Jobseeker's Allowance.
• You get £500: neither more nor less.
• To claim it you need to get hold of a SF100 form, either online or via the Jobcentre Plus.

Housing Benefit

• This is money to help towards your rent. Obviously you need to be renting somewhere first, so if, for example, you are temporarily living with friends or relatives, this won’t apply.
• The amount you are paid depends on your income and capital as a couple, but also on whether you have children or not. This means that even if you were not entitled to Housing Benefit before you might be entitled now.
• It is paid by your local authority (council).
• If you want more information about Housing Benefit, click here.

Council Tax Support

• This is money to help pay your Council Tax. Again, if you’re just staying with friends or relatives, this won’t apply.
• The amount you are paid depends on your income and capital as a couple, but also on whether you have children or not. This means that even if you were not entitled to Housing Benefit before you might be entitled now.
• It is paid by your local authority (council).
• If you want more information about Council Tax Support, click here.

When to claim what…

• Ask your employer for Statutory Maternity Allowance more than 15 weeks before your baby is due;
• If your employer says it is not going to give you Statutory Maternity Allowance, make sure they give you a SMP1 form and then apply for Maternity Allowance, provided that there is 15 week or less before the baby is born;
• Claim Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support when your normal earnings stop (unless you’re not renting anyway yet. If you’re not entitled then try claiming it again when your baby is born. If you do get awarded it before your baby is born still tell them when this happens, as you may be entitled to more.
• As soon as you can after the baby is born claim Child Benefit and Child and Working Tax Credit. You don’t need to do it immediately, but it’s sensible to claim it these in the first month. This is because you can get Child Tax Credit backdated, but only up to a month.
• Claim the Sure Start Maternity Grant next. Ideally, wait until you know that you’ve been awarded Income Support before doing this, but if the due date is approaching and they still haven’t made a decision, claim anyway.

If you are getting close to the three month time limit and still haven’t received a Child Tax Credit award, make a claim for it anyway before the three months runs out. If this is refused don’t worry: just wait until you are awarded Child Tax Credit, and then make another claim for the grant within three months of this. This only works if you’ve made a first claim for the grant within three months of the baby being born.

The Tax Credit Office will ask you for your Child Benefit Number, which you won’t have at this stage, but don’t worry about this. Just make sure you tell the Tax Credit Office when you get given a Child Benefit number

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