We have an employee on maternity leave which commenced on 7 Jan.

We are a small organisation and have always been flexible and generous with her requirements so didn't get a formal notification of the fact she wanted to come back early. She always insisted that she would come back after 2 weeks but then ... said she wanted 4 weeks and (is now) not sure when she comes back and her doctor wants to see her in 2 weeks.

I've now asked for a formal written date from her for when she comes back based on the 8 weeks notification that we can expect. However, her contract expires on 31 March so even giving 8 weeks notice now takes her past that date. She says she'd like to say that she'll come back at beginning of March but can't say for definite and has asked that if she gives me a written date for coming back and then can't do so because her doctor says she's still ill would her start date be invoked and then she would be off sick. I don't know how to proceed in terms of getting a formal date but there is only a few weeks of the contract left.

We need to employ a temporary worker to cover her work and at the moment don't know how long to make that contract. We'd like her to come back if she can but don't want to be seen to be making it difficult for her to come back. Also, because she hasn't been here we haven't been able to formally tell her (we wanted to tell her face to face in the first instance) that her contract will not be renewed (because funding has ceased for that particular project. We don't want the fact that her contract isn't to be renewed to be confused with requesting a date for her return. Can you help? Many thanks