The minimum statutory holiday entitlement is 5.6 weeks per year. For anyone working a 5 day week this equates to 28 days per year and is pro-rated for those working parttime. For example, for an employee working 3 days per week the annual entitlement is 16.8 days.
Under the Working Time Regulations holiday cannot be replaced by payment in lieu, (the only exception being on termination of employment).
Public Holidays
There are usually 8 bank holidays each year in England and Wales (it is usually different in Scotland and Northern Ireland).
There is no law that gives an employee the right to paid leave on public holidays. Any right to paid time off for such holidays depends on the terms of the employment contract. However, even where the contract does not include this, the right to paid leave may have built up through custom and practice in a specific workplace.
An employer does not have to pay premium rates for employees who are required to work public holidays, such as time and a half or double time. However, such arrangements often already exist in contracts of employment or have evolved through custom and practice.
An employer does have the right to make an employee take public holidays from the 5.6 weeks statutory holiday entitlement under the Working Time Regulations 1998.
If holiday entitlement is inclusive of public holidays, i.e. 20 days plus public holidays, and the employee is required to work a public holiday, the employee should receive another day off in lieu in order to meet the statutory minimum entitlement of 28 days. As this day is part of the annual holiday entitlement it must be paid rather than unpaid, even when a premium payment may already have been paid to the employee for working the public holiday.
Annual leave begins to build up (“accrue”) as soon as an employee starts their job and annual leave continues to accrue during maternity, paternity and adoption leave or sickness absence.
The government relaxed the regulations in March 2020 about the carrying over of holiday from one year to the next because of the Covid pandemic. The regulations will allow up to 4 weeks of unused leave to be carried into the next 2 leave years. Some employers already allow employees to carry over a portion of their annual leave entitlement from one year to the next, this will be in the contract.
An employee cannot receive sick pay and holiday pay at the same time, however an employee can take holiday while off sick if they choose if they are not fit to work but are fit enough to take a holiday, or if they have a mental health condition that might be helped by having a holiday or if they are on sick long term and a holiday might help with their recovery.
An employee can be on holiday and become ill and be paid sick pay and have the holiday days back to use another time. An employer will usually have rules about how this has to be reported to the employer may require some evidence that the employee is sick.
There is no automatic right for an employee to take holiday when they want to and some employers will require an employee to take leave at a particular time, if the business shuts down at Christmas for example. If an employer is telling an employee when to take leave, they should be giving two days’ notice for every day of holiday they want the employee to take.
On termination of employment, workers should be paid in lieu of any holiday not taken.
Author
Nicky Ackerley BA(Hons)
Nicky is the owner of HR Support Consultancy. She has a BA(Hons) in Business Studies, is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and has been a practising HR manager for more than 20 years. HR Support Consultancy has provided the BVNA Members Advisory Service (formerly known as the Industrial Relations Service) since it began in 2002.
DOI: https://doi.org/IQ.1080/17415349.2021.1932938
VOL 36 • July 2021 • Veterinary Nursing Journal