banked hours laws/regulations?

whitehotlola

Hi hope someone can help me! my company has just brought in a banked hours system which operates on a monthly basis i.e. if I’m under my contracted hours at the end of the month I am expected to pay the hours back. (I’m contracted to 40 hours per week but due to doing shift work it’s calculated on a monthly basis).
Theres nothing in my contract about banked hours and the company policy isnt particualry helpful it just says i have to pay back any owed hours within three months of banking them.
So if anyone can tell me if there is any laws/regulations on banked hours this would be greatly appreciated, as my concern is that because February is such a short month i'm going to owe loads of hours and be expected to pay them back all at once.
thanx

SarEl

There are no laws - this is just another type of timekeeping system adopted by some employers. If you do not understand it fully then you need to get them to explain it - how they operate it may be different from how somebody else does, and you might end up with duff information!

clairec79

So if you do 35hours in week 1, 42hours in week 2, 40 in week 3, and 38 in week 4 it means you owe them 5 hours and during the next 3 months you are expected to work an extra 5 hours in addition to your normal ones

whitehotlola

thanx for the responses yes thats how the system works. i was hoping there would be a specific regulation on this kind of time system but but it doesnt look like there is.
i've asked my manager questions but the answers were a bit vague at the moment i'm making up my banked hours by covering other peoples holiday which is fine beacause you have to give a months notice for holiday so i know in advance when i'm covering a shift but my manager has said i am expected to cover sickness if i owe hours (no one has been off sick yet since the system has been in place) this concerns me because would this mean that i would be asked to cover shifts at very short notice.

getmore4less

I think you need to understand exactly what contract you have.

If contracted to hours(non variable) and the employer fails to provide those hours then AIUI they should still pay them.

for flexable working averaging the hours over a period is sensible but should still be paid.

As long as it is just a count of +-hours and you are working the 40hr most weeks it should work out OK.

If they are consistantly under shifting that will be an issue.

AS for the Feb issue(bit sneeky doing it in feb)

52 weeks at 40 hrs is 2080hrs so 173 1/3 per month

feb is 160 so 13hr difference but other months will have more than 173 1/3.

What are they doing about over hours and TOIL.