To think accruing 15 days annual leave whilst on maternity leave is not correct

[wowihaveagardennow]

I am at the end of my maternity leave and due to go back in a couple of weeks to my full time job. HR said I've accrued 15 days annual leave.

Can this be correct?

My normal entitlement is 25 days. And I thought we also accrued bank holidays etc.
I was expecting to have accrued 25days+ 8 days bank holiday IE. 33 days.

I don't know if this is relevant but my work only offered SMP and didn't have their own maternity package.

AIBU to think something is amiss with only 15 days accrued annual leave?

Edit to add; I went on mat leave first week of April 2023. The the accrued days is my full accrued days for the entire year I've been off ie. 2023 and 2024

In many places you can only carry your annual leave into the following year, it's not an indefinite thing.

Ask HR for a full breakdown of your leave 2023/2024 (carried over, taken and accrued). At my work they said i had to take any accrued leave before i went on maternity leave and these would not be carried forward. You should still have a year's worth though if you didn't over take in the first few months of the year.

Are you part time?

Sometimes you can only carry forward 10 or 15 days from a previous year - otherwise people could take almost none in one year (like you have) and then expect to be able to take it on top of this years, which could mean 60+ days of not being at work. At my DH’s place, you can carry forward 10 days, 15 with snr management permission in special circumstances (and even then, he is required to use the carried over days by the end of the first quarter/31st March), ie use it or lose it.

It’s also to ensure staff do take their annual leave as there are health/MH ramifications that impact on safety, performance and productivity as well as a raft of employment law about it, to protect the employee’s well-being in cases of unscrupulous employers.

I didn’t think you accrued bank holidays on maternity leave? I didn’t anyway.

Although employers can put in limits on how much annual leave you can carry over, if you have been on mat leave it is different. You have a right to the full amount you would have had for last year to be carried over. Take this up with HR.

It could be that you "took" annual leave at the beginning of your Mat Leave, so that you wouldn't carry as much annual leave over.

2023 you'd have been entitled to 33 days including bank holidays, as you say.
2024 to end of March your entitlement is 33 / 12 x 3 = 8.25 days

To come down to 15 days accrued you'd have had to have been paid for 26 days before and up to your Mat Leave period.

Or maybe they're going to pay you for what you haven't taken?

Either way you need their calculations to check.

ACAS link

Did you work part time before you went on mat leave? Because your 25 days and bank holidays will be adjusted pro rata if you did!

You do accrue bank holidays as well as general holiday entitlement

Some poor advice here I would go back to your HR and ask for the calculations.

They may not have included 2024 holiday as you will have the rest of the year to use it, but you can opt to take some. They will be able to explain.

Did you lose annual leave because you were on maternity leave so didn't officially "take" it, then perhaps only 5 days were carried over?

It might be a system has done this automatically and you need them to override that.

Surely you'd just get back what you had left of last year. This year's is still to take

As others here have said, I’d ask HR to explain - it may be that they will pay you for days you can’t carry over, but limit how many you can carry forward?

We can't tell you, you need HR to give their breakdown and explanation. And get it in writing.

Ask HR for a breakdown. Anything you didn't take last year needs to be carried over. I got 6 weeks.

I don’t think people have read this update from OP.