Holiday Entitlements

In accordance with European rules paid holidays have been guaranteed since 1998 with the minimum holiday
statutory entitlement of 4 weeks per leave year.

However, the Government have increased holiday entitlements to better the European legal minimum.

Employers can count public holidays (like Christmas Day) as part of someone’s paid holiday.

The new rules will prevent workers losing on public holiday entitlements.

 

Going forward full-time workers will enjoy the European minimum of four weeks’ paid holiday and also get days
off equal to the number of public holidays – a further eight days.

 

The new rules come in two stages adding four days from 1 October 2007, with a further four days added on 1 April 2009.

It is important to understand that this is not an automatic right to take public holidays as paid leave.

If an employee had to work on Christmas Day before, the employee will still have to.

But it does mean that the employee gets an extra day off on top of the previous minimum to make up for
working on a public holiday.

 

Employees who work less than the five full days a week enjoy these rights in proportion.

 

The new rules are best understood in the following way:

• From 1 October 2007 the legal minimum paid leave entitlement will increase to 4.8 weeks per year (this is 4 weeks annual leave plus 8 days public holiday)
• On 1 April 2009 there will be a further increase to 5.6 weeks.

 

 

WHO IS ENTITLED TO PAID ANNUAL LEAVE

The minimum leave entitlement applies to employees (including part-time and temporary workers), most agency workers and free-lancers and some self-employed people who are not really running a business, such as those who become self-employed for tax purposes.

Scottish agricultural workers are covered by separate rules and must already get at least five weeks’ paid leave per year.

 

 

HOW MANY DAYS LEAVE DO EMPLOYEES RECEIVE

 

From 1 April 2009, you multiply the working week by 5.6, so five-day-a-week employees will then enjoy 28 days.

If an employee currently works six days a week they are already entitled to 24 days. This however will remain a maximum entitlement until 1 April 2009, so they will not get an increase in time off until then, when the maximum rises to 28 days.

 

WHAT IS A LEAVE YEAR

A leave year is a one-year period in which an employee get their year’s worth of leave.
Employers will usually agree the start and end of the leave year with employees.
Some leave years start on 1 January and finish on 31st December. Others start on 6 April and finish on 5 April the following year.

 

If the employer and employee have not agreed when the leave year should start and finish, the leave year will start on:-

a) 1 October (23 November in Northern Ireland), if you started work with your employer
on or before 1 October 1998 (23 November 1998 in Northern Ireland).
Each leave year after this will start on the following 1 October (23 November in Northern Ireland);

or

b) the date the employee started work for you, if they started work after 1 October 1998
(23rd November 1998 in Northern Ireland). Each leave year after this will start on the
anniversary of the date on which they started work.

 

Employees starting work partway through the leave year, the amount of leave given depends on how much of the leave year they have worked. For example, if the employee started work in April in a company where the leave year starts on 1 October, they have started half-way through the leave year. The employee will therefore get half the annual paid leave for that year. There are special rules if they are in your first year of employment.

 

 

WHAT EMPLOYEES CONTRACT MUST SAY ABOUT HOLIDAYS

Employees are entitled to a written statement of their terms and conditions of employment as long as they have worked for the employer for one month. An employee is classified as an employee if a contract of employment is in place.

Many employers do not give their employees a written statement of the main terms and conditions of the job even though the law says they have to. If as an employer you do not give a written statement to an employee within two months of the date on which they start work, you will be breaking the law.

The written statement must contain information on an employees right to holidays, including public holidays and holiday pay. Employers must give enough information to employees to work out their entitlement to holidays and holiday pay, and their right to any holiday pay they may have built up when they leave their job.

Employees who do not have a copy of their written terms and conditions can seek the help of an experienced
adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau.

 

 

HOW MUCH HOLIDAY PAY SHOULD AN EMPLOYEE GET

Employers will pay employees holiday pay at the same rate as their normal week's pay for each week of leave. Employees may get a higher rate of holiday pay if their contract gives them the right to a higher rate.

A normal week's pay is either:-

a) if employees work regular hours, their earnings for a normal working week, after tax
and national insurance contributions have been deducted;

or

b) if employees working hours vary from week to week, their average hourly rate of pay,
after tax and national insurance have been deducted, multiplied by their average weekly
working hours over the previous twelve weeks. If they have not yet worked twelve weeks,
you should work out their average pay over the period they have worked.

 

Some employers and employment agencies may say that an employees hourly rate of pay includes an amount for holiday pay, and that they expect employees to save this part of their pay to cover their holidays. This is known as 'rolled up' holiday pay. Rolled up holiday pay is against the law.

 

 

EMPLOYEES RIGHT TO PAID HOLIDAY FROM THE DAY THEY START WORK

Employees who have the right to paid holiday have this right from their first day of employment. However, this does not mean they can take their full paid holiday entitlement leave on their first day of work. The law says how their paid holiday builds up in their first year of work.

 

How does an employees paid holiday build up in their first year of work, if they started after 25 October 2001 (14 April 2002 in Northern Ireland)

 

If the employee started work after 25 October 2001 (14 April 2002 in Northern Ireland), the amount of leave they can take in their first year of work builds up over the year. The amount of leave they can take builds up monthly in advance at the rate of one twelfth of their yearly leave each month. If this does not give them an exact number of days leave, their leave is rounded up to the nearest half day. Employers will deduct any leave they have already taken from the leave they have built up.

 

How to work out an employees paid holiday if you started work on or before 25 October 2001 (14 April 2002 in Northern Ireland)

 

If the employee started work on or before 25 October 2001 (14 April 2002 in Northern Ireland) they are entitled to their full annual leave entitlement for each leave year but there are no legal rules about how their holiday builds up.

 

 

CAN YOU CHOOSE WHEN TO TAKE HOLIDAY

 

Employees can request to take holidays whenever they choose, as long as they give their employer the right notice and take into account certain agreements between the employee and employer.

However, an employer has the right to refuse an employees request to take holiday, as long as they give them the right notice and take account of certain agreements between them both.

 

Employers can order employees to take all or any of their holiday at a particular time, as long as they give employees the right notice and take into account certain agreements between them both.

 

The law does not put any limit on the amount of holiday an employee can take at any one time. This means employees are not entitled to take two weeks of holiday at once, unless your agreement or employment contract says they can. This means that as long as an employer gives their employee the right notice, they could make an employee take their holiday as they choose, for example, take every Friday as leave until the employee has used up all of their holiday.

 

 

WHAT NOTICE MUST EMPLOYEES GIVE BEFORE THEY TAKE A HOLIDAY

If employees do not have an agreement with their employer about how much notice they have to give before they can take holiday the following rules apply:-

Employers can make employees take all or any of their holiday at a particular time, as long as they give employees notice.
This notice must be at least twice as long as the holiday they want employees to take.

For example, if the employer wants to have a Christmas shutdown for one week, they have to

give employees notice of the date the holiday is to start at least two weeks before it starts.

 

Employees must give notice to their employer when they want to take holiday. This notice must be at least twice as long as the holiday they want to take.

For example, if an employee wants to take three days’ leave, they must give their employer notice of this at least six days before their holiday is due to start.

 

Employers can refuse to let employees take holidays. To do this the employer must give the employee notice equal to the holiday they want to take. So if the the employee has asked to take two weeks’ holiday and have told their employer four weeks before the date they want their holiday to start, the employer must tell the employee two weeks before their holiday is due to start that they cannot take the holiday.

 

 

 

THE EMPLOYER REFUSES TO LET THE EMPLOYEE TO TAKE HOLIDAYS

If as an employer you refuse to let your employee to take any holiday, you should usually try to sort it out informally with them first.

If this doesn't work, the employee can follow a special three-step grievance procedure

which all employers are required to have by law. This means the employee must:

• send the employer a written statement, setting out their grievance, and give them at least 28 days to respond
• meet with their employer to discuss their grievance
• appeal against the employer's decision if they are not happy with it.

If an employee follows this procedure and are still not happy with the outcome, they can ask an

employment tribunal to enforce their right to take holidays.

If the employee makes a claim to a tribunal, they must do this within three months of their employer's refusal to let them take holidays, although this time limit may be extended if they have raised a written grievance first.

 

 

UNTAKEN HOLIDAYS

If an employee cannot use up all of their annual holiday entitlement in one leave year, they cannot carry it over to the next leave year. The law does not allow an employer pay employees for holiday they have lost because they have not been able to take those days off.

If the employment contract gives an employee holidays on top of the holiday the law gives them, they may be able to carry over some of the holiday the contract gives them to the next leave year if the employment contract allows this.

If the employment contract gives an employee holidays on top of the holiday the law gives them, it may also say an employee can have pay instead of any of this extra holiday that they have not taken.

 

 

 

EMPLOYEES WHO ARE SICK WHILE ON HOLIDAYS

The rules about how employees are treated if they are sick when they are meant to be on holidays are complicated.

If an employee is off sick, they will usually be entitled to build up paid holiday from work. However, if they are on long-term sick leave, they may lose this right.