Getting paid (or not) got bank holidays on furlough leave

Forum_Name

I’ve read some of the other threads on bank holidays and I’m not following with some of the replies that have been given so I want to just check everything is ok in my situation. 

I get 20 days to use as I wish, within reason and then there’s the 8 fixed bank holidays on top of that when the business is closed. They reserve the right to open on these days and you would get to take the day elsewhere but in at least 30 years they never have. The only time they did something like that was the Queens jubilee and the royal wedding. 

On a week where there’s a bank holiday the payslip usually reflects that. A typical payslip would display:
x/hours @ normal hourly rate
y/hours @ overtime rate
1 day bank holiday (which I think is paid at a 12 week average rate). 

Those are the 3 entries on the payslip so you can see you have been paid for everything appropriately. 

However this time however it just says:
1 week furlough, with a total payment given. 

No mention of a bank holiday. I don’t know whether that’s right, wrong, whether I’ve benefitted, lost out or neither. 

ThePeopleDirector

You need to ask your employer.  There are two choices for them:
a.  save your Bank Holiday day until later (it is just a day off, no need to be on a specific day); or
b.  pay you 100% salary for the Bank Holiday.
Holiday can still be taken during furlough but you must be paid 100% salary for that day.

Forum_Name

Thank you for the response. 
Do you have a link, preferably a government backed one that backs that up just in case they say no & no to those points?

Also, I am on variable pay so as I understand it, I am the higher of March 2019 or my yearly earnings averaged out. I tried looking for an online calculator just to double check my working out but I couldn’t find anything?? Easy for salaried people but I’m not salaried. No two payslips are the same. 

Comms69

Forum_Name said:

I’ve read some of the other threads on bank holidays and I’m not following with some of the replies that have been given so I want to just check everything is ok in my situation. 

I get 20 days to use as I wish, within reason and then there’s the 8 fixed bank holidays on top of that when the business is closed. They reserve the right to open on these days and you would get to take the day elsewhere but in at least 30 years they never have. The only time they did something like that was the Queens jubilee and the royal wedding. 

On a week where there’s a bank holiday the payslip usually reflects that. A typical payslip would display:
x/hours @ normal hourly rate
y/hours @ overtime rate
1 day bank holiday (which I think is paid at a 12 week average rate). 

Those are the 3 entries on the payslip so you can see you have been paid for everything appropriately. 

However this time however it just says:
1 week furlough, with a total payment given. 

No mention of a bank holiday. I don’t know whether that’s right, wrong, whether I’ve benefitted, lost out or neither. 

Hi pal.

You get 28 days holiday. 8 are pre allocated for you by the employer. 20 are available for he employer to decide when to use. You request, it's either approved or denied. 

It seems like they are not requiring you to use any leave for the bank holiday. So your total allowance hasnt decreased.

You still have 28 (or whatever left) to use. 

General_Grant

Forum_Name said:

. . .
However this time however it just says:
1 week furlough, with a total payment given. 

No mention of a bank holiday. I don’t know whether that’s right, wrong, whether I’ve benefitted, lost out or neither. 

Are they paying you 100% or 80% (or something in between) what you would otherwise have expected?

Forum_Name

@Comms69 are you saying then that with Easter having passed, I should now have 2 days to take elsewhere in the year? So let’s pretend I have taken no days holiday so far this year out of my 20 ‘free’ days so to speak. I would now have 22 days holiday to use, with 5 remaining ‘fixed’ holidays?

@General_Grant they are paying me 80% for the furlough period, no more. 

Comms69

Forum_Name said:

@Comms69 are you saying then that with Easter having passed, I should now have 2 days to take elsewhere in the year? So let’s pretend I have taken no days holiday so far this year out of my 20 ‘free’ days so to speak. I would now have 22 days holiday to use, with 5 remaining ‘fixed’ holidays?

@General_Grant they are paying me 80% for the furlough period, no more. 

Yes that is correct. 

You are entitled to 5.6 weeks (28 days) paid leave. 

Your employer can dictate when that leave is taken - ie they use that privilege for bank holidays. 

Furlough does not include paid leave. That is separate. So if you have not been paid 100% for the bank holidays, then you have not used paid leave.

Forum_Name

Thank you very much. 
You don’t know if a suitable furlough calculator do you? 
Im sure I should be able to work out my percentage but I wanted to check. 

If if I take March 2019 GROSS pay (we’re paid monthly actually) & compare this with the GROSS on my P60 divided by 12 then the P60 version is the greater pay. 

I will then need to calculate it weekly as we got 2 weeks furlough pay in this pay cycle and the 3rd week will be in next months pay cycle. 

So for that that I imagine I take the P60 gross and divide it by 52? Which gives you a weekly figure. Let’s say for example that that ended up as £500.00 bang on. 

I then would go 0.8 x 500.00 = £400

which would mean 80% of my pay would be £400. I should then expect £400 each week of furlough, correct or no? 

Comms69

Basically yes. Obviously its complicated to some degree by tax codes etc. 

Ultimately you would see a drop of approx 20% on your earnings. 

Payslip might divide the pay up for ease. 

Masomnia

The official guidance to employers on furloughing was updated yesterday and still there is nothing in there on annual leave. I agree with Comms it should be 100%. There are going to be a lot of grievances and claims come out of this!

General_Grant

The longer furloughing lasts, the worse this will be because of the averaging nature of calculating how much money is paid for the holiday taken which will be used by some employers.