Statutory Holiday Entitlement

Under the Working Time Regulations 1998 workers are currently entitled to a minimum of 4.8 weeks paid leave work per year.  This equates to 24 days for any individual who normally works a 5-day week and can include bank holidays. 

The Work & Families Act 2009 provided a statutory framework conferring the right on Government to increase the amount of paid holidays workers are entitled to 28 days (5.6 weeks) from 1 April 2009.

The changes cover all workers covered by the Working Time Regulations 1998, including agency workers.

There will be no qualifying period for the additional entitlement.  However, as is currently the position, employers can limit the amount of holidays a worker can take in their first year of employment to the amount they have accrued at the point they wish to be absent.

Workers who work on bank holidays continue to be entitled to take an equivalent amount of compensatory time off elsewhere;

Employers with a holiday year starting after 1 October will need to carry out a calculation to factor in the appropriate additional entitlement.

The current Regulations specifically exclude carry over of any part of the first 4 weeks of the statutory provision or payment in lieu of untaken holiday (except on termination of employment) as this is contrary to the purpose of the Regulations.  However, the legislation does allow some of the additional entitlement to be carried over (by agreement between the employer and worker).   Employers will still be prevented from payment in lieu for any of the additional entitlement.  (Employers will still be permitted to make a payment in lieu for contractual holidays in excess of the 4.8 week entitlement).

Employers will still be able to require workers to take leave, or be entitled to refuse leave requests, at specific times, eg. Shut down, busy periods;

The current notice requirements for requesting leave will remain unchanged.

Further information can be found here.