Annual leave payment when resigning

TheKeymeister

Hi, I resigned from my job last wednesday, and I am currently having what looks like the start of a heated debate with my manager about my outstanding annual leave.


In anticipation of leaving, I had annual leave booked from 20th September until 14th October, but as I am due to start a new job on 1st October I asked if I could change my last day of service to 30th September and have my annual leave paid as it would be easier for tax purposes.

My last day of service has been amended, but there is now some dispute about paying for the annual leave. The calculation has been done and I have 81.27 hours annual leave remaining (the annual leave from 20th-30th September is already taken off this), and this includes 31 hours I carried from last year. Until yesterday, I had used no annual leave since the start of the leave year (1st April), and have been unable to because of working on a project for the Olympics. I work a 36hr week.

The policy from HR is shown here...

The buy-back of annual leave form is a downloadable form on the left-hand side of this page. It should only be used to pay for statutory leave whenever it is outstanding when leaving <company name>, when this cannot be taken before the last day of service or during the notice period. There is a legal obligation to pay for outstanding statutory leave.

It is expected that people will use any outstanding statutory or <company name> holiday before their last day of employment. Any payments to compensate for outstanding <company name> holiday entitlement is at the discretion of line managers but would normally only be paid in exceptional circumstances where there is prior agreement and the individual has been unable to take their leave entitlement due to business requirements.

He is saying that I have in effect waived any statutory right to be paid for any outstanding holiday as I have changed my last day of service and therefore would have been able to use all of it if I hadn't done that (no I wouldn't...) and I am due nothing, not even any statutory leave remaining.

Any ideas on this? This manager is known to be a bit stingy with these sorts of things, I have had trouble with special leave etc before when working for him, and he has some problem with me anyway, so this has come as no surprise.

Payment for 81hrs leave would be a lot of money so I'm quite happy to get a solicitor involved if need be, but just looking for some indication as to where I stand before I go that far. I'm pretty sure saying the right words and mentioning a solicitor would scare him into paying the lot anyway (I work for a large company and I don't think they could afford the bad press)

Any thoughts?

antonic

I`m with the manager because :

1) Employers do not USUALLY pay for untaken leave, IF it could be taken before the end of the employment (the Civil Service only does in exceptional circumstances).

2) You asked for the time off and have now changed it (to take the other job) and now appear to want a cash benefit for resigning and taking another job.

3) The quote you have posted, is that the whole quote or just the part that is beneficial to you ?

Sambucus_Nigra

You can only carry over a max of 1.6 weeks leave, from one year to the next. And that's at the companies discretion. Anything else is actually illegal - so you might have to write off any if they are above that. You don't give your total leave in a year so it's hard to calculate if this is the case.

Basically; you would have been better off leaving the annual leave as was, and just starting your new job earlier. That way you would have still been paid for the time and not in effect given them 10 days notice.

You have the right to accrue leave and be paid for it at the end of employment if you have not taken it, that's the law and they can't override it.

You could speak to HR and tell them that you know it's illegal to withhold monies owing on leave days and as such, if the leave isn't paid you will take it to a tribunal - however they then might say 'you gave us 10 days notice, so we had to hire someone for the other 20 days and this has cost us X and we are taking that out of your leave days'. It can all get a bit nasty.

Can you just change your leave back to the 14th Oct?

TheKeymeister

Thanks for the replies both, I have not been allowed to take any annual leave anyway due to working on the Olympics project, I carried over 31 hours which is just under a week,

The quote is the section about payment for outstanding annual leave, the rest is basically the calculation for statutory leave and what to do for part time employees etc.

I asked if it was possible to change my last day of service and have my annual leave that I would have been burning off paid for instead, he agreed as I would be 'off the books' quicker and it helped his budget or something similar. Obviously I'd rather pay extra tax on something instead of less tax on nothing - if I'd have known this was going to happen I'd have left it as it was but he seemed quite happy to do it and I can now see why! (That was the only reason for this - I didn't want to run two jobs concurrently as I used my notice up due to tax problems of running two jobs concurrently)

My yearly annual leave is done in hours and we get 180 hrs in a year so 5 weeks (36hr week) plus I carried 31 hrs (we sometimes work different hours day by day)
There is no way they could get someone to cover my work even if they tried, it's far too specialist for someone to just turn up and do it. They have been managing without me for 6 months while I was seconded to the Olympics and I strongly suggest this is what is causing the trouble (he didn't want me to work on the project but couldn't stop me)

Uncertain

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

You can only carry over a max of 1.6 weeks leave, from one year to the next. And that's at the companies discretion. Anything else is actually illegal

That applies to STATUTORY leave. If the OP gets more than the statutory minimum (28 days) then the firm can have whatever rules they like about the extra.

Sambucus_Nigra

TheKeymeister wrote: »

Thanks for the replies both, I have not been allowed to take any annual leave anyway due to working on the Olympics project, I carried over 31 hours which is just under a week,

The quote is the section about payment for outstanding annual leave, the rest is basically the calculation for statutory leave and what to do for part time employees etc.

I asked if it was possible to change my last day of service and have my annual leave that I would have been burning off paid for instead, he agreed as I would be 'off the books' quicker and it helped his budget or something similar. Obviously I'd rather pay extra tax on something instead of less tax on nothing - if I'd have known this was going to happen I'd have left it as it was but he seemed quite happy to do it and I can now see why! (That was the only reason for this - I didn't want to run two jobs concurrently as I used my notice up due to tax problems of running two jobs concurrently)

My yearly annual leave is done in hours and we get 180 hrs in a year so 5 weeks (36hr week) plus I carried 31 hrs (we sometimes work different hours day by day)
There is no way they could get someone to cover my work even if they tried, it's far too specialist for someone to just turn up and do it. They have been managing without me for 6 months while I was seconded to the Olympics and I strongly suggest this is what is causing the trouble (he didn't want me to work on the project but couldn't stop me)

Have you got it in writing that he is happy for you to only give 10 days notice?

TheKeymeister

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

Have you got it in writing that he is happy for you to only give 10 days notice?

Yes - I have a copy of the email saved

Interestingly when I sent an email about the annual leave payment situation, he replied asking me to ring him - he does that usually when he doesn't want what he says in writing so it doesn't come back!

Sambucus_Nigra

antonic wrote: »

I`m with the manager because :

1) Employers do not USUALLY pay for untaken leave, IF it could be taken before the end of the employment (the Civil Service only does in exceptional circumstances).

2) You asked for the time off and have now changed it (to take the other job) and now appear to want a cash benefit for resigning and taking another job.

3) The quote you have posted, is that the whole quote or just the part that is beneficial to you ?

1 - They HAVE to pay any leave accrued. That's the law.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/Timeoffandholidays/DG_10034711

You also have the right to be paid for any untaken statutory holiday entitlement that you have accrued.

2 - It seems the manager preferred that option

Sambucus_Nigra

TheKeymeister wrote: »

Yes - I have a copy of the email saved

Well, then - use the quote that I have just posted to inform him of the law, and tell him it will be much easier than you taking it to a tribunal just to pay it.

TheKeymeister

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

Well, then - use the quote that I have just posted to inform him of the law, and tell him it will be much easier than you taking it to a tribunal just to pay it.

Spot on thanks - that's really what I was after, someone to say yes or no before I went in all guns blazing! Cheers

Uncertain

TheKeymeister wrote: »

Interestingly when I sent an email about the annual leave payment situation, he replied asking me to ring him - he does that usually when he doesn't want what he says in writing so it doesn't come back!

Record the conversation. There is no law to prevent you secretly recording a conversation as long as you are party to it!