Holiday pay after leaving - Any HR help?

Adviceneededplzz

Hello. Please can someone offer some advice before ACAS are called this week.
sorry if this is confusing. It’s been driving us round the bend!
I've tried to explain it as simply as possible.
Background:
My wife worked at a company for 8 months from September 2020 to May 2021.
Holiday entitlement was 28 days including bank holidays and holiday year began on January 1st 2021.
She left on May 27th so this amounts to 90 hours of holiday earned for this year.

She took a total of 48 hours holiday during this year, so is owed 42 hours holiday by the company.

Her contract states she must give 4 weeks notice. She gave them 2 weeks and 4 days notice as she needed to start her new job by the week after. This was explained via a letter.
A couple of weeks later, HR (who are very rude/verging on bullying, hence the reason she left) held a meeting and stated that this was a “breach of contract.”

My wife apologised again for the shorter notice of 2 weeks and 4 days instead of 4 weeks, and told them they were welcome to use her holiday allowance to make up the remaining notice. 

This amounted to 48 hours owed.
(remember she only had 42 hours holiday allowance, so fully expected the rest to be taken from wages)

The HR managers response to this was simply “fine”.

She has now left after completing the 2 weeks and 4 days notice and has not been paid.
She emailed to ask when she could expect her pay and received a very rude email stating they did not agree to her ending her contract early (untrue, she had a meeting about this).
They state she owes them 48 hours for the short notice and they have provided a breakdown of upcoming final pay.
In this, they have deducted 48 hours of pay from her final wage. Leaving her with hundreds of pounds less than we had worked it out to.

It appears the 42 hours of holiday pay hasn't been paid to her, it has just been written off against what she owed them? 

Is this correct? 

JamoLew

You/She will probably have to wait untill her final payslip is received which will be ?end of June

They can’t deduct the 48 hours pay AND not pay for the 42 hours owed

lincroft1710

The word "fine" when used as a response to a statement/question can have two meanings.

1. That is OK

2.  So that's what you want to do, is it?

Adviceneededplzz

JamoLew said:

You/She will probably have to wait untill her final payslip is received which will be ?end of June

They can’t deduct the 48 hours pay AND not pay for the 42 hours owed

They aren’t releasing her final payslip until she signs the letter that says “I acknowledge my departure was never agreed” lol totally untrue.
”I will not make any further claims for remuneration”
They’ve said if she signs this they will release her pay. Sound dodgy to me.

TELLIT01

Did your wife have anything in writing to confirm that the company was happy to accept the shortened notice period.  If not, it's going to be one person's word against another.

If she 'owed' them 48 hours and they 'owed her 42 hours holiday pay' I'm assuming her final payment is more than 6 hours pay less than expected.

Adviceneededplzz

An easier way to explain the way we are looking at this is, she had 42 hours of holiday left.
She couldn’t go in for the final 1 weeks and 1 day (48 hours) to make the notice period 4 weeks in total.

Therefore she said “please use my holiday of 42 hours”
Holiday days are paid days.
she expected to be paid for them, just like you would if you were having 6 days on holiday.
They’ve taken the holiday days off her AND the holiday pay plus 6 extra hours owed (the 6 hours was expected).

BrassicWoman

So she expected to be able to take holiday without it being agreed.
They could in theory ask her to pick up the additional cost (OT rates or agency rates less her usual pay) for this period.

Adviceneededplzz

BrassicWoman said:

So she expected to be able to take holiday without it being agreed.
They could in theory ask her to pick up the additional cost (OT rates or agency rates less her usual pay) for this period.

No. Not without it being agreed.
HR said it was fine in the meeting as I mentioned. 

If they had a problem with it, it should have been brought up before she left. Plus there was barely any work when she left. People were sitting at their desks with barely anything to do so it’s highly unlikely they would’ve needed anyone for a week.

adamp87

It doesn’t seem like they agreed it seems she handed in her notice first and then ended up being pulled into a meeting by HR later on.

Would of been much better to ask before handing it in to be honest. But that’s gone now.

They can’t withhold a payslip. 

I’m confused is she full time hours? 

Her holiday leave would be about 15-16 days (or just over 2 weeks) looking at the gov calculator. With a leave calendar date of 01/01/2021 and an end date midway through the year of 27/05/21.

You’ve stated of that she’s used 48 hours already.

I may be incorrect but 90 hours divided by 16 days that looks about 6 hours a day is that correct?

90-48 hours used = 42 remaining

Which would mean she had about a week left? 42/6= 7

So she’s not owed anything? If her notice she didn’t serve was a week & a day? That’s how I understand it.

I might be looking at your maths completely wrong.

So depending on when the cut off date for pay is shes either owed 

The two weeks she worked or £0.00 if she’s already been paid for them?

Adviceneededplzz

The holiday she’s owed is correct. They’ve even written that in their email.
It’s the fact that she’s asked them to use that holiday for the remaining week and a day notice period, and they haven’t paid her for it.
holiday should be paid.
they’ve taken the holiday off her and the pay for it too.
 

adamp87

Adviceneededplzz said:

The holiday she’s owed is correct. They’ve even written that in their email.
It’s the fact that she’s asked them to use that holiday for the remaining week and a day notice period, and they haven’t paid her for it.
holiday should be paid.
they’ve taken the holiday off her and the pay for it too.
 

That sounds correct to me. But I might be reading it wrong.

Say I leave work a week early and I've 40 hours holiday remaining but they state we'll use your holidays to cover that week. My payslip may (If I remember correctly) show 40 hours holiday x£???  and then 40 hours holiday -£??? - the amount being taken out the pay for that month. So if it was £500 then -£500 would also show on the payslip. Some payslips will show -hours.

Is that what's happened is that what you mean? She wouldn't be paid for it physically.

Or do you mean the weeks she actually worked she hasn't been paid for? Sorry if I'm making this more confusing.