Holiday pay during maternity leave?

Werdnal

I do the wages for staff at our village Playgroup and we have a lady on maternity leave at the moment. As the staff are only contracted to work term-time, and have no option to take paid holiday during terms, we pay them the statutory annual holiday entitlement as "paid" holiday, split 1.5 weeks at Christmas, 1.5 weeks at Easter and 2.6 weeks during the summer break.

As maternity pay is a statutory entitlement, regardless of the hours you are contracted to work, the lady current on leave is being paid her mat pay throughout the holiday - when she would normally get 2.6 weeks normal pay at the start of the holiday, then nothing until she returned to work for Autumn Term. She contacted me last week, asking where her holiday pay was. I know the entitlement to paid holiday accrues throughout the maternity leave, but having checked online, I can only find reference to people taking their holiday allowance at the start or end of the maternity leave period (as days/weeks off), but cannot find any reference to actually being paid for their holiday entitlement during their leave period.

Hope you have followed me so far!

Anyway, should I be paying her the normal 2.6 weeks holiday pay on top of the £100'ish a week she is getting as maternity pay at the moment, or should I allow this to accrue and pay her whatever she is owed when she returns to work (currently scheduled for February unless she gives notice at some point before then).

Any advice appreciated, thanks

getmore4less

BAsed on my understanding of the rules for maternity, you canot work(except KIT days) OR take holiday during maternity.

Yhe logical conclusion is that this accrued holiday is carried over and paid during the weeks when they are not paid OR the maternity is extended using up the holiday(so not maternity but hliday pay).


Do you currently average out the pay or pay for work and holiday with some weeks unpaid?


Why was the maternity holiday not used/paid before the maternity period?

getmore4less

Just to chack do you also normaly pay bank holidays that don't fall in one of the 3 holiday pay periods?

You should also note you are overpaying statutory holidays if you are paying 5.6 weeks to a term time only worker

princessdon

The way our holiday workers work is the following

Salary / 39 weeks (if that is the weeks you work by)

Plus

28 days (or more if longer service) based on hourly rate

This then equates to salary.


If on ML it is the 28 days (or longer) pro rate'd to ML that is paid regardless of when it is forced to take.

Eg is a mother was off 9 mos they'd get 21 days AL as FTE.

getmore4less

princessdon wrote: »

The way our holiday workers work is the following

Salary / 39 weeks (if that is the weeks you work by)

Plus

28 days (or more if longer service) based on hourly rate

This then equates to salary.


If on ML it is the 28 days (or longer) pro rate'd to ML that is paid regardless of when it is forced to take.

Eg is a mother was off 9 mos they'd get 21 days AL as FTE.

Thats more than the statutory minimum.

Depending on the maternity period mapping to the work periods may be an incorrect way to do it.

Werdnal

getmore4less wrote: »

Just to chack do you also normaly pay bank holidays that don't fall in one of the 3 holiday pay periods?

You should also note you are overpaying statutory holidays if you are paying 5.6 weeks to a term time only worker

Thanks for replies.

We pay the 5.6 wks split over the year, as that is what was agreed by our management committee when the original minimum holiday entitlement rules came in 5 or 6 years ago. I just do what I am told . They were given various formulae for calculating term time only holiday allowance when the minimum holiday regs came in, and they varied so much in the amounts it was settle on just paying 5.6 weeks of each staff member's "normal" pay as it seemed the fairest way to do it and easiest to work out each time.

As each member of staff works a differing number of hours per week, I take the last 12 weeks or working term (12 weeks usually equates to around a term anyway), and average the weekly pay for that worker, ie add the 12 weeks Gross and divide by 12 to give the "weekly holiday pay" amount for that particular round of holiday pay - so each worker's holiday pay rate varies every time.

We don't pay any "Extra" for bank holidays as all but 1 fall in the school holiday periods anyway . Thats just the way I have always done it in 6 years doing this, so if I am wrong, please someone correctly me!

The lady in question was not offered or asked to take her annual leave before she started her maternity leave, because we don't take holiday during term time and it never occurred to us to offer her additional "days off" before she went. Holiday is always paid not actual "leave", unless someone needs a day or 2 off for a particular reason during the term, when they are not paid during their absence. Similarly, half terms etc, are not paid.

I am inclined to pay her the amount of holiday pay she would get if she had worked normally until the holiday started, but just wanted to check what the "norm" is in these circumstances. I guess I will have to calculate the holiday pay rate on the last 12 weeks she worked for us, and use that for the calculation this time 'round. If she takes all the entitlement and returns in Feb as she has suggested at the moment, she will be due holiday pay for Christmas as well.

Any further advice appreciated.

getmore4less

5.6 weeks statutory is for someone that works 46.4 weeks.

For someone that works 36 weeks you only need to give 4.35 weeks so you are being generous

the simple way to do variable hours weeks for statutory is to multiply the hours/days/weeks by 0.1207.

alonehiker

Employees taking statutory maternity, adoption, paternity and parental leave will continue to accrue statutory paid holiday and, in many cases, any contractual holiday entitlement. Statutory paid holiday cannot be taken at the same time as maternity/adoption leave, however, the employee should be allowed to take their accrued statutory holidays on their return from maternity leave, even if this falls in a new holiday year.

Werdnal

Jamtastic87 wrote: »

Employees taking statutory maternity, adoption, paternity and parental leave will continue to accrue statutory paid holiday and, in many cases, any contractual holiday entitlement. Statutory paid holiday cannot be taken at the same time as maternity/adoption leave, however, the employee should be allowed to take their accrued statutory holidays on their return from maternity leave, even if this falls in a new holiday year.

Thanks for that Jamtastic, puts a different slant on things. Where did that extract come from so I can quote it in context to the lady concerned?

As we give holiday pay rather than days off, does this mean that any accrued holiday "pay" cannot be paid until she comes back to work? I can offeer her to take the additional days as extra on the end of her leave period, but I suspect as we have set a president to pay rather than allow leave, she will want hard cash rather than days off!

alonehiker

Werdnal wrote: »

Thanks for that Jamtastic, puts a different slant on things. Where did that extract come from so I can quote it in context to the lady concerned?

As we give holiday pay rather than days off, does this mean that any accrued holiday "pay" cannot be paid until she comes back to work? I can offeer her to take the additional days as extra on the end of her leave period, but I suspect as we have set a president to pay rather than allow leave, she will want hard cash rather than days off!

Yes, you're absolutely right, Werdnal. I know this information from working with staff for too many years but it's widely available - http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1081597918&type=RESOURCES

In the UK, the statutory annual leave entitlement is 5.6 weeks. A worker must take at least four weeks' paid holiday per leave year. What a worker does with the remaining 1.6 weeks depends on their contract of employment. You cannot make a payment in lieu for any days that remain untaken, though.

Werdnal

Thanks for that, I'll have to break to news to her now!!!!