The recent Jubilee bank holidays have presented one or two issues that had not previously been considered.
The first question is around an employee’s right to take off the extra day as paid leave. This is actually a matter for the contract of employment. Typically, a contract will say something like 20 days annual leave and bank or public holidays. If it says this you would need to provide the extra day off as paid leave.
However, if you have a clause that states, 28 days leave including bank and public holidays, you will probably not need to provide the extra day.
Equally, if the contract states 20 days, plus 8 statutory holidays, there is no need to pay for the extra day.
The second question is around sickness and bank holidays and whether someone who is on sick leave over a holiday is entitled to receive time off in lieu.
Obviously the first thing to do is take a look at the contract, as considered above. If you find that your employee shroud be entitled to the day off as part of their statutory entitlement, then we have to look at case law, particularly, Pereda v Madrid Molidad SA [2009], where the European Court of Justice held that a worker who is on sick leave during a period of scheduled annual leave, must be allowed to hold on to their annual leave and take it at a later time.
Later in the year you will see that Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, so we have a substitute Bank Holiday on Tuesday 27 December. A full list of Bank and Public Holidays can be found by clicking here.
The rules around bank holiday and annual leave can be quite confusing and it is one of the areas where we receive a lot of calls for clarity. If you have any questions about Holiday pay or leave, please give us a call at the Nottingham Head Office on 0115 856 1625 and we will do our best to help.
