Many employers (and employees) can get confused over rights and obligations regarding holiday entitlement. Luckily ACAS, the government-funded employment relations service, have released a comprehensive leaflet covering all the issues surrounding holiday pay. The main points have been summarised below.
Entitlement: Legally, every employee is entitled to 5.6 weeks paid leave per annum. This equates to 28 days for those working 5 days per week and can include the 8 public holidays scheduled in a year, providing those days fall within the normal contracted hours. Any holiday entitlement not taken on termination of employment must be fully paid to the employee.
Public holidays: There is no statutory right to be paid for public holidays. Any right to paid time off on these days is down to the agreed terms of the employment contract (or any implied terms built up through custom and practice of the employer).
Specified leave: Employers can stipulate when employees must take leave e.g. for business shut down periods over Christmas and also set a maximum period of leave that can be taken consecutively. Provided the employee is given sufficient notice and it is covered in the terms of employment, an employer can require a worker to take all or any of the leave to which a
worker is entitled at specific times.
Maternity leave: Employees on maternity leave continue to accrue entitlement to paid holidays at the same rate as when they were working. Therefore, if an employee is on maternity leave for a full year they are still entitled to be paid a full years holiday entitlement.
The ACAS website has further information on all the above points and should be your first port of call for any employment related questions. They even have a free impartial helpline you can call for any employment related concerns you may have.
