REWARD INSIGHT
Annual leave and the law
Jill SmithMCIPPdip, CIPP policymanager, brings to your attention the decisions in several recent cases
T here have been some recent court cases which you may not be aware of that could impact or affect your employer. These affect the carrying forward of leave, the paying of any leftover leave to beneficiaries after the death of an employee, and accrual of annual leave during parental leave. General overview ● Entitlement – The law that sets the UK annual leave entitlement is the Working Time Regulations 1998 (‘the Regulations’). In simple terms, all workers, except those who are genuinely self-employed, are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday per year. An individual is generally classed as a worker if he or she has a contract of employment. The 5.6 weeks equates to 28 days of leave per year for someone who works a five-day week. Part-time workers are entitled to the same amount of holiday (pro rata) as full-time colleagues. Workers are entitled to the following types of annual leave: ❍ a minimum of four weeks of paid annual leave under the Regulations, often referred to as ‘regulation-13 leave’ ❍ an additional 1.6 weeks paid annual
leave under the Regulations, generally known as ‘additional leave’ ❍ any additional entitlement provided for in the relevant agreement, often known as ‘contractual leave’. ...entitlement to holiday pay will continue to accrue during sick leave... Together, regulation-13 leave and additional leave make up ‘statutory leave’, which is usually included in the annual leave entitlement and will be set out in an employee’s written contract. However, legally ‘contractual leave’ means any leave in the contract over and above statutory leave. There is no legal right to paid public holidays, but the worker’s contract should state if they are to be paid for these holidays. If paid, they can be counted as part of the statutory 5.6 weeks of holiday, but employers can provide them in addition, if they so choose. ● Accrual – As soon as a person starts
working, he or she will begin to accrue leave. The holiday entitlement is not affected by maternity, paternity or adoption leave. The employee still builds up or accrues holiday over these periods. Gov.uk has a holiday entitlement calculator to help work out what annual leave is due if an employee starts part-way through the year and what leave someone has left if the employment is terminated (https://bit.ly/1picPiR). Carrying forward annual leave Case law dictates that a worker’s entitlement to holiday pay will continue to accrue during sick leave, regardless of whether this is paid or unpaid. If a worker is unable to take their annual leave in their current leave year because of sickness, they should be allowed to carry that annual leave over until they are able to take it, or they may choose to specify a period where they are sick but still wish to be paid annual leave at their usual annual leave rate. An employer must allow a worker to carry over a maximum of 20 of their 28 days of leave entitlement if the worker couldn’t take annual leave because they were off sick. There have been several high-profile
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | May 2019 | Issue 50 36
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker