Local Government Continuous Service

[Popsie1]

Hi, wondering if anyone working in local government could answer this one...
I left Local Government 2 years ago with over 5 years service when my little boy was just 2. If I go back do I start off on minimum annual leave again? I’ve seen mention on the internet that if you left and have been caring for a child, as long as you didn’t do perm full time employment you maintain your annual leave. I left and took very flexible fixed term(which became perm) part time employment whilst looking after my son. However other sites on the internet say you lose your entitlement and start at square one again 🤔 so it’s a bit conflicting. Would appreciate any help with this one 😊 Thanks

Are you in a union OP? They should be able to advise.

Thanks for your reply Lilimoon but no i’m not.

I left one local authority when we relocated and started a virtually identical role in the new LA two months later. Because I didn’t have the new job before leaving it was a break in service and I lost the enhanced annual leave an went back to the bottom of the pay grade.

my understanding is that you would go back in without continuous service

Yes you lose your continuous service if there is any break at all.

I've never heard anything like this. I suspect that if there ever was such a thing it's long gone together with automatic incremental rises and absence management policies that allowed you to be ill without immediately worrying about job safety.

Arr I did wonder, thanks for your replies. That must have been gutting dontletmedowngently!
This is a unison doc I just found (page 21) that has this para...

“14.2 Where an employee returns to local government service following a break for maternity reasons, or reasons concerned with caring for children or other dependants he or she will be entitled to have previous service taken into account in respect of the sickness and maternity schemes provided that the break in service does not exceed eight years and that no permanent paid full time employment has intervened. For the purpose of the calculation of entitlement to annual leave the eight years’ time limit does not apply provided that no permanent full time employment has intervened”.

But guessing this means if you take similar to a career break for caring reasons, rather than actually leaving?

www.unison.org.uk/content/uploads/2018/07/NJC-Green-Book-18.pdf

Might be worth ringing ACAS and see if they know.

I work in local government. We recently employed someone in a similar position and HR advised there was no entitlement to additional leave but it was at the manager's discretion to agree if they wished to include that in the job offer. And we did. So it's worth asking.

If you were in the LGPS whilst there with some final salary pension, you could move it to your new post if you have less than a 5 years gap between posts and be able to have it linked with your new full time equivalent salary (which can be worth doing if it's higher than your old one).

I'm dealing with a similar case (not same reasons for break in service). Like PP says, we can't offer continuous service (as that leads to other benefits such as right to redundancy pay, enhanced sickness benefits etc) but we are looking at options to offer the enhanced leave entitlement given we took length of service and experience into account when appointing. Candidate tells us they've checked with ACAS who confirmed it's not possible to treat as continuous service.

Thanks everyone that’s really helpful! That’s great that it might be possible, i’ll certainly ask if it can be included in the package if I get offered a job.