Holidays – Statutory Annual Entitlement
Where a leave year starts on a day other than on the date entitlement changes in the table above, entitlement shall be calculated pro-rata. An online calculator is provided by on the ‘GOV’ website at https://www.gov.uk/calculate-your-holiday-entitlement . Since 1st October 2007 employers are no longer required to round up entitlement to the nearest full day in the first year of employment, but may do so on an optional basis if they so desire. However, rounding down is not an option. The amendment regulations leave unchanged the accrual rate for the first year of employment. COPYRIGHT © 2021 THE CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PAYROLL PROFESSIONALS Employers may still limit the amount of holiday that can be taken at any point during an employee’s first year of employment. Employees are entitled to 1/12th of their annual accrual for each full month worked and the result is rounded up to the nearest full or half day. This does not result in additional entitlement; it is merely an administrative tool to prevent employees from taking holiday before it is earned. Since October 2007 unused holiday over and above the 20 days may be carried forward into the next holiday year as long as the contract allows. Of course any contractual holiday over and above the 28 days (5.6 weeks) may also be carried forward subject to contractual provisions. Holiday Pay - Long-term Sickness Prior to 6th January 2009 it was generally understood that statutory annual holiday pay did not accrue during periods of long-term sickness. The Working Time Regulations 1998 set the principle that workers who do not use their full statutory entitlement of 4 weeks (20 days) in the current year cannot carry it forward. In the case of Stringer v HMRC (formally Ainsworth v HMRC), following an appeal to the House of Lords and a referral to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the ECJ ruled that the four weeks (20 days) statutory minimum holiday entitlement under The Working Time Directive should accrue throughout the duration of sick leave, and may be taken on return to work, carried over, or be paid in full where employment terminates or if there is insufficient time left in the leave year to take the accrued holiday after return from sickness. This ruling conflicts with the UK’s existing Working Time regulations and the UK government has yet to amend the regulations. Public sector employers however are required to abide by the ECJ ruling immediately even though the regulations have not been amended, as ECJ rulings supersede national legislation for public authorities. A consultation (Modern Workplaces) was published in May 2011 that outlined plans to allow employees to carry forward unused holiday up to the 4 week EU statutory maximum if they have insufficient time to take their entitlement post-sickness before the holiday year ends – entitlement over and above the 4 weeks could be forfeited. Employers may also be able to buy out entitlement over and above the 4 weeks or insist on carry over. BEIS have still not indicated when the proposals will be implemented and the published impact assessments on the proposals merely indicate the likely costs of the preferred option. No printing, copying or reproduction permitted. In the meantime however they have made a statement on the Gov.uk website - see https:// www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave that indicates payment of SSP can go towards discharging an employer’s liability to holiday pay, and equally that SSP need not be paid in addition to holiday pay should the employer choose to make payment of the accrued leave at the end of the holiday year when the employee is still off sick.
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