Backdating bank holiday entitlement

kigamdliw · 26 April 2018 at 9:27AM

Hi
It is being proposed where I work that part time staff are pro-rated for bank holidays. Bank holidays are given in addition to usual annual leave allowance and I don't have a problem with the fairness of pro-rating bank holidays for part time in general however it is being proposed that this is backdated to the beginning of the current year and I wonder if this is legal or not as leave decisions for this year have already been made (it is a customer service environment so this year's leave booking was pretty much all booked last year). The change being applied retrospectively will result in a number of hours being deducted from this year's annual leave entitlement and possibly leave employees in negative leave or having to book any xmas leave (we can't book this until at least October usually) as unpaid or cancel other leave that has already been booked. Any advice on where we stand in respect of the change being applied retrospectively would be appreciated. Thanks.

BorisThomson · 26 April 2018 at 9:42AM

What does your contract say about annual leave entitlement for part time staff?

By current year do you mean calendar or financial year?

kigamdliw · 26 April 2018 at 9:53AM

Current year is both calendar and financial year I believe. Leave entitlement is January to December and proposal is to backdate change from January. Thanks.

BorisThomson · 26 April 2018 at 9:56AM

kigamdliw wrote: »

Current year is both calendar and financial year I believe. Leave entitlement is January to December and proposal is to backdate change from January. Thanks.

And what does your contract say?

Jan to Dec is the calendar year. Financial starts in April.

nicechap · 26 April 2018 at 10:59AM

Have you ever heard of a pay rise being back dated?

There's been 3 bank holidays in England, more in Scotland & NI since 1 Jan.

Other leave later in the year that has already been booked can be cancelled by the employer subject to giving you sufficient notice, so hours can be corrected there.

Are you trying to make a problem out of the situation?

kigamdliw · 26 April 2018 at 11:01AM

I don't have access to my contract right now though will check it later but I am 99% certain it says that my annual leave allowance is 24 days plus bank holidays (pro-rata for part time). However I am not disputing the right to pro-rata bank holidays for part time staff. I am only questioning whether they can backdate that to the beginning of the leave year when the bank holiday entitlement wasn't previously pro-rated for many years before that. Thanks.

kigamdliw · 26 April 2018 at 11:06AM

No, not trying to make a problem out of the situation. In general I think that the annual leave allowance is generous. I am simply wondering whether backdating such a decision is right. As I said, I don't have a problem with the fairness of pro-rated bank holidays - it simply seems that if such a change is to be made then it should be for the next leave year. Thanks.

nicechap · 26 April 2018 at 11:14AM

kigamdliw wrote: »

No, not trying to make a problem out of the situation. In general I think that the annual leave allowance is generous. I am simply wondering whether backdating such a decision is right. As I said, I don't have a problem with the fairness of pro-rated bank holidays - it simply seems that if such a change is to be made then it should be for the next leave year. Thanks.

Well that's a different question and what your union is for.

As I indicated above, they could cancel all your future leave and allocate you the remaining hours as they see fit according to the business needs.

If you already have higher than typical annual leave, and enjoy the job and pay, its better to work with the employer than against them.

agrinnall · 26 April 2018 at 1:30PM

BorisThomson wrote: »

Financial starts in April.

I don't see what relevance the tax year has to any leave question. The only relevant period is the organisation's leave year, which may or may not align with financial (tax or company) or calendar years. My own holiday year runs from August to July because that is my employer's financial year, but when I started there it ran from October to September and wasn't aligned with anything else.

jobbingmusician · 26 April 2018 at 1:40PM

I can't see that they are applying anything 'retrospectively' as you are obviously in the current leave year.

Am I right in my understanding of what has happened? That the company has been dozy for many years and has been giving part-timers ALL bank holidays (or worse, all the BH when they work, so that people working on Mondays get a ridiculous amount of holiday). They have now woken up and are going to apply BH leave properly, so part-timers will potentially lose some of the extra leave they shouldn't have had anyway, and you're asking whether they can implement this in the current year even though people have already booked holidays based on the previous, over-generous, allocation?

(You may have gathered that if my understanding is correct, my view is yes, of course they can.)

Xbigman · 26 April 2018 at 4:33PM

I work a 3 day week and I get pro rata bank holidays.

The system I work is that the Holiday year is April - March but the Bank holiday year is Jan - Dec. This is so that Xmas bank holidays are the first available to earn and are carried over to Jan if not used. I know it's a cack handed way of doing it but it works. This means I get the Xmas and Easter bank holidays but lose the three May/Aug bank holidays. A mid year change would not be backdating in this case as it only affects future Bank holiday entitlement.

The OP needs to find out;

How many bank holidays will they earn (mine are rounded up to a whole day - get the union to ask for this).
How will bank holidays be accrued.
Which bank holidays will they get.
When can they be booked.

Darren

Backdating bank holiday entitlement

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