Carrying over annual leave

[QueenStromba]

I work in a long term position through a temp agency. Their holiday year runs from October to October and they don't allow carrying over of annual leave from one year to the next. They also don't allow the taking of holiday days until they are accrued. This means that you can't take a full week's paid holiday between the start of October and the middle of December because you won't have five days of leave accrued. Can they really dictate this?

I don't see why they can't dictate it, but it seems rather odd as you must have to take the last day of September off. Have you asked them about this?

I tried to book the week starting 29/09 off and was told that I wouldn't get Weds to Fri as annual leave. I just assumed that since I couldn't carry any leave over then I'd be able to take holiday that I hadn't earned yet because not letting you do either seems like madness. As you said, that means everyone having holiday at the end of September - if you have several temps at the same place then they'll all need to take holiday at the same time!

I posted this because I saw on on a gov.uk site that you can carry over 8 days and was wondering if that was law or a suggestion.

Could you take it as unpaid leave?

It just seems poorly thought out.

I am taking it as unpaid leave - my de facto employer doesn't care when the agency's holiday year ends (other than quite a few of their staff will be missing at the end of the month) and they definitely don't want me to lose out. It's really annoying that our holiday is going to cost an extra couple of hundred quid due to my lost earnings when I'll have to take holiday later in the year that I don't necessarily want and is additional to what I'd have gotten if I was a direct employee therefore screwing them over for cover.

There is no legal entitlement to carry days over from one year to the next. Your employer is entitled to dictate when you can take your holidays. I have come across businesses that only allow you to take holiday once it has been accrued. It seems to be a precaution against the worker taking a lot of paid holiday and then disappearing, leaving the employer unable to reclaim the excess holiday pay.

The .gov website seemed to suggest that the extra 8 days on top of the previous statutory 20 could be carried over which is why I posted here. I've now used the leave calculator and realised that if nothing else they're trying to screw me out of about 0.3 days worth of holiday by rounding down which they're definitely not allowed to do.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the point of the difference between the 20 days and the 8 days is that you can't carry over the statutory days - your employer has to make arrangements for you to take them. Whereas any extra days are up to what's in your contract.

There is no difference between the 20 days and the additional 8 days. It is all statutory holiday and you cannot normally carry any of it over to the next holiday year or take payment in lieu. Some employers give their staff additional holiday entitlement above the statutory minimum. It is up to the individual employer whether or not any additional holidays can be carried over.

Note that, for many full time employees, the company will dictate that 8 days of statutory leave are used on public holidays leaving 20 days for the employee to use when they want (provided their employer is happy with the dates).

It's all perfectly legal. And, especially the accruing, seems common sense for an agency to do, as someone may take leave, then not work for them again. With not knowing they were leaving, the agency would not be able to take the overpayment from their final pay. Just common sense for them really.

Thanks, prh - I can't count. It's 28 days that are statutory, not 20.