Can an agency "legally" withold holiday pay?

LittleVoice

Victoriajayne wrote: »

Ah, you work for an agency that works on average hours ... not good !!!
Maybe you should try working for a proper agency that accrues your holiday pay as a percentage of what you actually earned each week... you'll be so much better off !!! ;-)

I don't really know what you mean. It's not average hours, it's average pay. It's the holiday which goes "into a pot", not the pay itself.

I work, say, 40 hours a week and therefore accrue 4.828 hours holiday. That was accrued when I earned £20/hour. I take holiday 15 weeks later when I have been earning £22/hour for 12 weeks. I'm therefore paid those 4.828 hours at £22/hour, not the £20/hour I was earning at the time the holiday was earned.

I don't see how I would be better off if I received a straight 12.07% of my weekly pay.

Do you work (or have you worked) for an agency as a temp or a "consultant"? Of course, if you suffered a pay cut, the last 12-week period could be detrimental.

Victoriajayne

LittleVoice wrote: »

Of course, if you suffered a pay cut, the last 12-week period could be detrimental.

Exactly !!! :rotfl:

Nice to see you've seen the light regarding how lost pay for untaken holiday works too !!! :T

christinem

Hi, my daughter worked as a temp in Dec09 to Feb10 then again in July-August10, for two different agencies. I have been trying to help her reclaim tax and so looking at her pay slips, which made me realise that she didn't claim holiday she was entitled to - the first agency has some preprinted info on the payslip but otherwise didn't mention holiday to her and she had no idea she was entitled to it. The second agency didn't mention it at all.
From the second agency one payslip shows some hours that she didn't work and the amount then deducted as an 'Advance Deduction' and I am guessing that this is holiday pay that the agent has claimed from the employer and not paid to her.
Is she entitled to ask for the holiday pay now?
(sorry if this has been answered above I got a bit lost trying to read through the thread)

liney

christinem - Holiday accrual and booking should have been in the terms she signed when she had her interview, or a handbook which she was given. As it is a Statutory Right they wouldn't need to cover it specifically verbally, but provide the information so that she could read about the process. Did they provide her with documents which she failed to read?

Whether she can claim it now will depend on if the holiday year has rolled over.

LittleVoice

christinem wrote: »

Hi, my daughter worked as a temp in Dec09 to Feb10 then again in July-August10, for two different agencies. I have been trying to help her reclaim tax and so looking at her pay slips, which made me realise that she didn't claim holiday she was entitled to - the first agency has some preprinted info on the payslip but otherwise didn't mention holiday to her and she had no idea she was entitled to it. The second agency didn't mention it at all.
From the second agency one payslip shows some hours that she didn't work and the amount then deducted as an 'Advance Deduction' and I am guessing that this is holiday pay that the agent has claimed from the employer and not paid to her.
Is she entitled to ask for the holiday pay now?
(sorry if this has been answered above I got a bit lost trying to read through the thread)

I assume that the two spells of work meant one spell was with one agency and the other with a different agency, not that she was working with two agencies in the same spell.

So the first spell ended in February 2010. Unless, very unusually, they have a corporate holiday year running from February to January, the holiday year will have expired - no later than in November/December 2010 - and holiday will not be paid now as it is out of time. If, by any chance the year runs from February, then she has a chance of claiming holiday only in respect of the hours worked in February 2010, not the earlier time.

It is more likely to be possible to claim for the second spell. This is because though it may be that that agency says they have a holiday year which ended in December, if they didn't specify this then the year would be running from the time of her first assignment with this second agency. Definitely worth asking for that - particularly if she hasn't received a P45.

LittleVoice

Victoriajayne wrote: »

Exactly !!! :rotfl:

Nice to see you've seen the light regarding how lost pay for untaken holiday works too !!! :T

I wasn't going to continue this exchange but, as I've contributed another post here .......

What I wrote about the "12-week average pay rate" was not about untaken holiday. Sorry you didn't understand that. It was about how it is probably better (and legal) to use the averaging process because pay tends to go up.

I acknowledged that for someone taking a pay cut, working more hours and then taking holiday, it would mean receiving less holiday pay. That seemed to be the only part of my post which you chose to read.

If one is aware of that, you take the holiday before accepting a pay cut!

christinem

Thanks for your advice. You are right she worked for one agency at a time and she hasn't had a P45 but then she hadn't had payslips either so I asked for them (had to ask 3 times before they were finally sent this week) and I asked for a P45 too, but haven't received it yet. If they say they have prepared the P45 does that mean it's too late? Since they were so difficult about payslips I suspect getting holiday pay will also be awkward but it is £107 which is a lot to just lose.

ames123_2

Christine - I am having the same problem. I worked last year for an agency between Janurary and May 2010. I enquired at some point during that time and was told I had 62 hours holiday. For some reason I thought that would be paid because I do not understand how holidays can be taken when working temporarily at least not what I was doing. I worked for the same place all that time, sometimes I would work 5 days in the week, sometimes none, they called me up as and when. So when they phoned me up saying the company wanted me for the next 3 nights was I supposed to say that I would take that as holiday?

I will look at my contract, but I remember it not saying anything about how it was to be taken.

Edit: Just found an email that they sent me on 17th May 2010 saying holiday was accrued weekly at 12.07% of the hours I do and that I had 63 hours of holiday. Can anyone help me as to what this means seeing as it was dated in this tax year when the majority of those hours were actually accrued before then ie, in the last tax year?
Thanks

LittleVoice

ames123 wrote: »

. . . For some reason I thought that would be paid because I do not understand how holidays can be taken when working temporarily at least not what I was doing. I worked for the same place all that time, sometimes I would work 5 days in the week, sometimes none, (it is when you are not working that you can claim holiday hours) they called me up as and when. So when they phoned me up saying the company wanted me for the next 3 nights was I supposed to say that I would take that as holiday? (No, you don't turn down work in order to take holiday: you take holiday when you are not due to work.)

. . . I
Edit: Just found an email that they sent me on 17th May 2010 saying holiday was accrued weekly at 12.07% of the hours I do and that I had 63 hours of holiday. Can anyone help me as to what this means seeing as it was dated in this tax year when the majority of those hours were actually accrued before then ie, in the last tax year? (The tax year has nothing to do with this. It is to do with your holiday year. You would have begun accruing holiday from the time you started working for them and that would be the start of your holiday year.
Thanks

Ask them to pay you now - provided you began work after about 10 January 2010 so that you are still within your holiday year.

LittleVoice

christinem wrote: »

Thanks for your advice. You are right she worked for one agency at a time and she hasn't had a P45 but then she hadn't had payslips either so I asked for them (had to ask 3 times before they were finally sent this week) and I asked for a P45 too, but haven't received it yet. If they say they have prepared the P45 does that mean it's too late? Since they were so difficult about payslips I suspect getting holiday pay will also be awkward but it is £107 which is a lot to just lose.

They should pay for holiday accrued but not taken at the time of termination. Check this with them.