Holiday pay

traceyaj

My husband works for the local council on a 18.5 hours per week contract. Since he commenced employment over 2 years ago he has worked overtime every single month (roughly 20 hours per month) .
The HR section contacted him early in July this year over another matter and suggested that he may wish to apply for extra payments when submitting his overtime claims as part of the Adjusted holiday pay scheme. The payments are 7.6 % extra to the hours claimed. 
He applied for the payments in July and a decision has still to be made, the HR section and management are passing this back to each other!   They seem to be having difficulty in deciding if this overtime is "Regular".
He intends to go through the councils grievance procedure if the decision goes against him and then to an employment tribunal if necessary.   
ACAS are aware of the situation.
Any advice on what he should try to resolve this would be most welcome. 

General_Grant

traceyaj said:

My husband works for the local council on a 18.5 hours per week contract. Since he commenced employment over 2 years ago he has worked overtime every single month (roughly 20 hours per month) .
The HR section contacted him early in July this year over another matter and suggested that he may wish to apply for extra payments when submitting his overtime claims as part of the Adjusted holiday pay scheme. The payments are 7.6 % extra to the hours claimed. 
He applied for the payments in July and a decision has still to be made, the HR section and management are passing this back to each other!   They seem to be having difficulty in deciding if this overtime is "Regular".
He intends to go through the councils grievance procedure if the decision goes against him and then to an employment tribunal if necessary.   
ACAS are aware of the situation.
Any advice on what he should try to resolve this would be most welcome. 

I'd be asking how the 7.6% has been calculated.

Is he a member of a Union?

traceyaj

General_Grant said:

traceyaj said:

My husband works for the local council on a 18.5 hours per week contract. Since he commenced employment over 2 years ago he has worked overtime every single month (roughly 20 hours per month) .
The HR section contacted him early in July this year over another matter and suggested that he may wish to apply for extra payments when submitting his overtime claims as part of the Adjusted holiday pay scheme. The payments are 7.6 % extra to the hours claimed. 
He applied for the payments in July and a decision has still to be made, the HR section and management are passing this back to each other!   They seem to be having difficulty in deciding if this overtime is "Regular".
He intends to go through the councils grievance procedure if the decision goes against him and then to an employment tribunal if necessary.   
ACAS are aware of the situation.
Any advice on what he should try to resolve this would be most welcome. 

I'd be asking how the 7.6% has been calculated.

Is he a member of a Union?

The 7.6% is a standard figure. He is not too concerned about it but could find out if necessary. It is more the fact that they haven't decided whether it can be paid and we are 4 months on ! 
He is a retired member of unison from when he finished full time work 4 years ago. It might well be time to renew his membership.

General_Grant

traceyaj said:

General_Grant said:

traceyaj said:

My husband works for the local council on a 18.5 hours per week contract. Since he commenced employment over 2 years ago he has worked overtime every single month (roughly 20 hours per month) .
The HR section contacted him early in July this year over another matter and suggested that he may wish to apply for extra payments when submitting his overtime claims as part of the Adjusted holiday pay scheme. The payments are 7.6 % extra to the hours claimed. 
He applied for the payments in July and a decision has still to be made, the HR section and management are passing this back to each other!   They seem to be having difficulty in deciding if this overtime is "Regular".
He intends to go through the councils grievance procedure if the decision goes against him and then to an employment tribunal if necessary.   
ACAS are aware of the situation.
Any advice on what he should try to resolve this would be most welcome. 

I'd be asking how the 7.6% has been calculated.

Is he a member of a Union?

The 7.6% is a standard figure. He is not too concerned about it but could find out if necessary. It is more the fact that they haven't decided whether it can be paid and we are 4 months on ! 
He is a retired member of unison from when he finished full time work 4 years ago. It might well be time to renew his membership.

I was interested in the suggested 7.6% because, just using the basic statutory entitlement to paid leave (ie not the enhanced allowance provided by the NHS), the percentage would be 12.07% leave.

traceyaj

General_Grant said:

traceyaj said:

General_Grant said:

traceyaj said:

My husband works for the local council on a 18.5 hours per week contract. Since he commenced employment over 2 years ago he has worked overtime every single month (roughly 20 hours per month) .
The HR section contacted him early in July this year over another matter and suggested that he may wish to apply for extra payments when submitting his overtime claims as part of the Adjusted holiday pay scheme. The payments are 7.6 % extra to the hours claimed. 
He applied for the payments in July and a decision has still to be made, the HR section and management are passing this back to each other!   They seem to be having difficulty in deciding if this overtime is "Regular".
He intends to go through the councils grievance procedure if the decision goes against him and then to an employment tribunal if necessary.   
ACAS are aware of the situation.
Any advice on what he should try to resolve this would be most welcome. 

I'd be asking how the 7.6% has been calculated.

Is he a member of a Union?

The 7.6% is a standard figure. He is not too concerned about it but could find out if necessary. It is more the fact that they haven't decided whether it can be paid and we are 4 months on ! 
He is a retired member of unison from when he finished full time work 4 years ago. It might well be time to renew his membership.

I was interested in the suggested 7.6% because, just using the basic statutory entitlement to paid leave (ie not the enhanced allowance provided by the NHS), the percentage would be 12.07% leave.

Thanks for the calculation, quite a difference then!  He has now had chance to speak to another employee who comes under a different council directorate and have no problem with claiming the 7.6%. 
He was 100% sure that this situation was due to my husbands management's delay entirely and the payment was not a problem with the HR section. 
He also suggested as you have that he seeks union help on this.    

ChasingtheWelshdream

Hi, I work for a local authority and holiday pay is automatically added for any additional hours worked that month, it doesn’t make a difference whether the overtime is regular or not.

For casual (zero hour) contracts, the employee either claims holiday pay each month according to the hours worked, or in some cases the holiday pay is calculated and paid twice a year.

Either way it should be paid. I wonder if the 7.6% (rather than 12.07%) is actually for enhanced leave on top of the statutory? We get an additional % once we reach 5 years service, which includes previously government employment if eligible (mentioned as he has only been there 2 years)

As an aside, if he is regularly working a set number of overtime, I would be asking if I’m fact he should have his hours increased contractually. Certainly in our authority, ‘casual’ hours that appear to be regular over a long period are often converted to a regular contract.

traceyaj

ChasingtheWelshdream said:

Hi, I work for a local authority and holiday pay is automatically added for any additional hours worked that month, it doesn’t make a difference whether the overtime is regular or not.

For casual (zero hour) contracts, the employee either claims holiday pay each month according to the hours worked, or in some cases the holiday pay is calculated and paid twice a year.

Either way it should be paid. I wonder if the 7.6% (rather than 12.07%) is actually for enhanced leave on top of the statutory? We get an additional % once we reach 5 years service, which includes previously government employment if eligible (mentioned as he has only been there 2 years)

As an aside, if he is regularly working a set number of overtime, I would be asking if I’m fact he should have his hours increased contractually. Certainly in our authority, ‘casual’ hours that appear to be regular over a long period are often converted to a regular contract.

He works as a market caretaker and this comes under the Economy And Skills section. His colleague also works part time and a similar number of overtime hours. Other than that it seems that there are not many in this sector who work overtime at all.  He comes into regular contact with the streetscene litter pickers and drivers who empty litter bins, they are in the Cleansing sector and seem to have no problem claiming the 7.6%!. 
We have often thought that the contractual hours should be increased and hopefully this is something his employers will look at.  

traceyaj

The Senior Service manager has made a decision on this, she has advised that she has spoken to the assistant director and sought advice from HR and emailed me this morning with the following:-
" Having reflected on this information and looked at the guidance we feel that we cannot support your request for adjusted holiday pay as the overtime being covered  is on an ad hoc basis covering service needs i.e sickness cover/holidays."
He has contacted Unison and they have advised that they can help in 4 weeks time as he has only just (today) upgraded his membership. 
Any advice welcome.

74jax

Did they say or link to what 'guidance'? 

ChasingtheWelshdream

Is he employed on NJC (green book) conditions? Has he looked at the relevant policies? They should be available for him. My authority has overtime and casual hours explicitly mentioned for holiday pay.

traceyaj

He is employed under the NJC conditions but they do not go into detail on Adjusted holiday Pay. Surely case law should be the deciding factor here?