Sick pay & bank holidays

whatwasmyname

Just looking to see if there's anything on this or whether it just depends what the contract says.
I am currently off work & have been off during the easter holiday period. Hoping to be back soon but it's a possibility i'll miss the upcoming early may bank hol.
I always thought that it is what it is when you're off on these bank holidays, you get what your sick pay is, be it SSP or anything above that (SSP in my case).

Talking to someone this weekend about my sick leave & story short they said that I'll be owed them days as holidays as I've missed them as off on the sick & only got SSP for them.

I just pacified them as I wasn't too sure or not as to whether they're correct since everyone is an expert down the pub kind of thing.

So just wondering what the situation is. I'm going to suspect chappy is wrong and that me getting SSP for them (so just shy of £20 for the day) & them having been & gone is correct?
But thought I'd ask.

Jillanddy

You are entitled by law to 28 statutory days holiday as a minimum. If that includes public holidays, then your friend is correct and you are entitled to that holiday back.  You cannot be counted as sick and on holiday at the same time. BUT, because nothing is ever that simple,  your employer may require a fit note from the GP to evidence sickness on a holiday day. That is fairly common for obvious reasons! 

Savvy_Sue

If the OP had an unbroken period of sickness from Easter to early May bank holiday, they'd have a Fit Note though.

However, always worth checking with the employer. I agree with Jillaandy, but our HR system allows someone to be recorded as both sick and on leave (or on a bank holiday) on the same date. So if someone is recorded as on leave, when their manager records sickness, they have to manually 'give back' the leave. That's assuming they notice. 

(It even lets you record sickness twice: if you phone in and expect to be back tomorrow, and then phone on day 2 and say "actually I need 3 days", if the manager records a new 3 day period instead of amending the original single day, you'll have 4 sick days on your record. Keep your own records, chaps!)

Jillanddy

Savvy_Sue said:

If the OP had an unbroken period of sickness from Easter to early May bank holiday, they'd have a Fit Note though.

However, always worth checking with the employer. I agree with Jillaandy, but our HR system allows someone to be recorded as both sick and on leave (or on a bank holiday) on the same date. So if someone is recorded as on leave, when their manager records sickness, they have to manually 'give back' the leave. That's assuming they notice. 

(It even lets you record sickness twice: if you phone in and expect to be back tomorrow, and then phone on day 2 and say "actually I need 3 days", if the manager records a new 3 day period instead of amending the original single day, you'll have 4 sick days on your record. Keep your own records, chaps!)

Yeah - but the fact that your system allows it doesn't make it lawful though. To be fair, our "system" allows this too, which is why humans are better than systems. But the OP may not have had a fit note over Easter - it depends when they were first off ill. Self-certification may not be accepted by the employer in these circumstances - ours requires a fit note to reimburse holiday entitlement. If there hasn't been a fit note throughout then it depends on what the employer says. 

Savvy_Sue

Jillanddy said:

Yeah - but the fact that your system allows it doesn't make it lawful though. To be fair, our "system" allows this too, which is why humans are better than systems. 

Sometimes, I wish the humans would fix the systems ... our Payroll system (which is entirely separate from the HR system) will NOT allow two kinds of leave to be booked on the same day. If someone had a/l or a BH booked, then you'd be forced to change SOMETHING to prevent the double booking!

Jillanddy

Savvy_Sue said:

Jillanddy said:

Yeah - but the fact that your system allows it doesn't make it lawful though. To be fair, our "system" allows this too, which is why humans are better than systems. 

Sometimes, I wish the humans would fix the systems ... our Payroll system (which is entirely separate from the HR system) will NOT allow two kinds of leave to be booked on the same day. If someone had a/l or a BH booked, then you'd be forced to change SOMETHING to prevent the double booking!

Oh I have never tried that one. I must see what chaos that creates when I have a boring day!

whatwasmyname

Just to clear things up a little before we get too much in to whether a note covered something or not and if this and if that etc.

I have had a doctors note / sick note / fit note, in other words a GP has signed me off since the week before Good Friday. I have actually been off since two weeks before Good Friday.
So so far I have missed Good Friday and Easter Monday.

I'm hoping to be back for 2nd May bank holiday / public holiday but obviously I'm off right now so there's no guarantee. 

My contract states I get 28 days, 8 of which are bank/public holidays (I can't find the contract so don't know the precise wording but I know I get 20 days to use whenever and we get the 8 bank holidays on top).

I work full time so all of these bank holiday days are normal working days for me. We close on them but what I'm trying to say is it's not like I work Tuesday - Thursday so I'm never scheduled to work a single bank holiday as a normal working day of the week. I work Monday - Saturday.

Holiday pay is calculated based on average earnings.
Sick leave is always standard SSP. Nothing above this. First 3 days are waiting days then SSP.

Good Friday & Easter Monday will also have been paid up as SSP.

So hopefully that clears up most of the variables?

So based on this then, you're saying that the chap I was talking to is correct - I should then get these days to use as holiday days at some point elsewhere in the year?

If that's the case then do you have some literature that backs that up as I suspect I will need that as I have a feeling they will say I am not due them - I've been paid for them (even though my pay will have been SSP rather than the usual holiday average earnings which is dramatically more, obviously).

Jillanddy

Yes, the chap is correct - as you have only 28 days including bank holidays and you had a GP fit note covering sickness on those bank holidays, you should get the days leave back to use at another time. Of course, the employer can, if they wish, tell you when you must take them. It has nothing to do with whether you have been paid for them - annual leave is paid anyway. It has to do with the law saying that you are entitled to 28 holiday every year and sick leave is not holiday. If the employer is confused, tell them to ring ACAS and ask them.

whatwasmyname

Thank you for the response. It's all a little what if right now so I'll have to wait and see what happens. 
There would be no telling them to phone ACAS though. They wouldn't do what I tell them to do I can assure you that. If they had it in their minds that they were right & I wasn't due these days, they wouldn't go spending time trying to find out if they were correct or not. They'd take it that they were because that's what they'd believe. It would absolutely be on me to prove that they were wrong, which is why I asked. 

From past experience I can assure you that this would certainly be the case, as much as anyone may think that a company surely would go out of their way to find out if perhaps they'd made a mistake.

but as I say, it's all a bit what if for now so hopefully it doesn't end up like that as it would save a lot of hassle.

Jillanddy

https://www.acas.org.uk/checking-sick-pay/sick-pay-and-holiday-pay

If an employee is sick on holiday 

An employee must report their sickness to their employer if they want to take any holiday as sick leave. In this case the employee can:

• get sick pay for the time they were sick 

• keep the time they were sick to use as holiday another time

whatwasmyname

Just a thought on this. Can they:

Our holiday pay (including bank/public holidays) is calculated based on an average. This average will include things like weekend work and overtime. In short, if you pack in the hours and then take a week off, you could end up with more in your pocket for the week off than what you would've got had you worked it. I've done that many a time. 
The average used to be a 12 week average so if it bothered you that much then in the 12 weeks prior to your week off you'd ram in all the hours you could for maximum holiday pay.
It has in recent years been changed to some other kind of average which I'm not too sure of. Possibly some kind of annual average. Your holiday pay will still vary from payslip to payslip however although we're paid monthly, it's actually calculated weekly & if you take a day off on week 1 of month 4 say and another day off in week 2 of that same month 4 then your average will show on your payslip as the exact same. 
Take another day off in a week of month 5 & you can be sure it'll be a bit different.


Anyway to get to the point, clearly with me having so much time off my average will now be well down. 

So what I'd like to do is to get a stretch of time in before using them when I do go back.
But can my employer basically say - we don't want you to have these extra days to use willy-nilly so what we're going to do is pay you them up in your very next payslip (but at a very poor average rate due to my sick leave)?


I tell you for why I ask - I remember once many moons ago I'd had a long amount of time off. I think it was an operation & then complications from that operation. It was back when holiday pay was calculated on a 12 week average & I'd ended up having 13 weeks off if i remember right.
They weren't happy I'd had so much time off. They were angry. Now prior to that if anyone needed any leave for a medical appointment & you had it at the start/end of the day, you just started later/finished earlier. This applied to everyone. I had a medical appointment in my first week back & I got it at the end of the day. They insisted on me using 1/2 day holiday for it. I couldn't see the point as during the busy time of the year they were insisting I finish about 4-5 hours earlier than I actually needed to. Clearly they were using it to tell me they weren't happy with me having had operation complications extending my sick leave.
When I picked up my payslip for it, the pay for 1/2 day was something silly like £12 when around that time I'd have 'normally' got I don't know, £40-£60 for it at a guess around that time.

So my concern is that they'll pay me up now for x-amount of bank holidays to what could equate to basically beer money for each day.


Sorry for long winded post. Just explaining my concern.