Maternity leave - holiday day accrued interpretation difference

[DerekDuvall]

Hi All!

My DP is due to deliver our boy later this year and is just discussing maternity leave. Her intention is for maternity leave to start as early as possible and for herself to be out of work even earlier then that. She plans to achieve this by means of using up her holiday and taking some unpaid leave in the month when her bonus will be paid out.

Her employer agrees with this in principal. It is a small company and the owner/director has been very happy with her recently and has recognized her contributions and acknowledged that it is a stressful job.

The point of difference in opinions is the following:

My DP believes that she is entitled to all of her holidays for this calendar year. So let's say 28 days holiday. She would like to use that during August/September and then go on maternity leave as early as possible. She would like to be on unpaid leave during July. That is when they pay out the bonus so she would not feel it or have her maternity pay reduced over the unpaid leave. She understands that it is the discretion of the employer whether this is feasible from business point of view, but that is not the question here.

Her employer believes that she is only entitled to the holidays accrued until her unpaid leave commences. So let's say 14 days in his opinion. He does believe she will accrue further 14 days before the end of the year and then further 14 in the second half of the maternity leave, but that she should take those after she is back. There is not really a business reason for her to be working BTW, it's just a viewpoint.

She has been working there for several years now. BTW her contract clearly states that in case of unpaid leave the holidays are still accrued.

I know that one should earn a right before exercising it, but most other employees anyhow take most of their holidays during summer. So most people are technically using in July what they will earn during August to December. Apart from those who maximize the Christmas break.

I tried checking gov.uk and it doesn't say anything on the topic. Some other blogs have ambiguous wordings.

Does anyone have a rule or an example of how is this handled?

Thanks a lot for your answers!

OP sorry if you've already stated this, I've looked at all of your posts though and can't see it anywhere.
When do her holidays run from and to at her work? Not all businesses run them as a calendar year or financial year. I've worked at a company before where they ran October-September because the company first started trading in the October many moons ago. I had a colleague before that was due her baby in the early October and she had to take her AL for that year at the end of her maternity leave as she couldn't get the 4 weeks in before her due date. Could it be the same sort of thing for your partner which hasn't been made clear?

@DerekDuvall have you double checked that the unpaid leave doesn’t fall within the 8 week period used to calculate SMP? This could impact entitlement.

I agree with @mummyh2016 the leave year will be a factor when calculating leave entitlement.

update?

@HandsupSue

Actually just updated a few moments ago. The view of most Mumsnetters has been confirmed: she will be able to take the whole allowance for this holiday year / calendar year as the others are also taking their holidays throughout the year as they are able to agree.

There were no scheduling issues and this way the 6 week period will almost entirely be covered by the holiday days.

The little which will be missed in the 6 week period is little indeed. Thanks a lot to everyone for your help!