Mat leave and bank holidays issue

[Allthesweets]

Hi all,

My mat leave is due to end in mid july, I’ve taken a full year off. My understanding was that bank holidays are added on top of any annual leave I have accrued in that year.

Work are saying they are not, and they are absorbed within your AL entitlement (28 days). They’ve also said there were only 4 BH’s from July 22 to July 23 when I count 10.

Anyone had this issue before?

You’re definitely entitled to all bank hols you missed on top of your regular annual leave (which you should have accrued too)
get advice from ACAS if you’re having issues with your employer x

Do you still have access to your contract? If so, double check that and it'll let you know about whether your A/L is inclusive of bank holidays. Is it HR who have told you this, or your line manager?

You're right about the number of them though - there were ten, thanks to coronation, Easter, and Christmas and New Year falling on the weekend.

Depends how your work handles bank holidays. We get them mostly in our A/L as 28 days plus 4. It used to be 24 + 8. So you need to check the basic A/L policy.

Check out this site:
https://www.acas.org.uk/your-maternity-leave-pay-and-other-rights/holiday-and-maternity-leave

You still accrue (build up) your usual holiday entitlement while you're on maternity leave. This includes bank holidays.

for example, I am entitled to 28 days annual leave and bank hols on top
so when I return I will have all the annual leave I accrued (28 days) and the 10 bank hols = 38 days.

A lot of places include bank holidays within your annual leave calculation so the 28 days will already include them. It depends on your contract as to whether they offered the extra bank holidays this year on top of the leave you already had. Did the rest of the staff get the BH as extra leave?

You are only entitled to public holidays on top of annual leave if :
(a) your annual leave is XX days PLUS public holidays (or a variation on this may be XX days plus 8 public holidays - nobody is entitled to public holidays or any specific number of them) or
(b) if your contract doesn't have specific terms saying otherwise. For example, where I work anyone on long term leave of any sort only gets the 28 days statutory leave, full stop, no matter what your normal contractual leave is. That is perfectly lawful.

So nobody is definitely entitled to all public holidays on top of annual leave.

What is your holiday entitlement and how is it worded in your contract?

The minimum entitlement is 28 days and the bank holidays can be included within that amount. You would only get extra leave if your contract specified that you are entitled to more than 28 days

Well this is a revelation.

My contract states 25 days plus the 8 statutory bank hols so I'll be asking HR to add those in to my annual leave when I return!

Thanks for this thread and the far more clued up Mumsnetters than me!!

Thanks for the replies all. Work have come back and said they’ve made a mistake. BH’s are added on top and there are 10 of them. But yeah there are places where they are absorbed into AL.