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Original poster

Did you know you accrue annual leave in both the paid and unpaid part of Maternity Leave

49 replies

drosophila · 13/05/2006 10:05

I was in an Employment Law course yesterday and this is one of the things I learnt. My own employer is under the impression that you don't accrue leave when you are not being paid but apparently you are entitled to accrue leave throughout all of your maternity leave, paid or unpaid. Something to do with the working time directive. Will post a link later.

OP posts:
hunkermunker · 13/05/2006 10:07

Oh, Drosophila, that's most interesting - thank you!

Pruni · 13/05/2006 10:08

Really?? My boss told me my manager would be extremely unlikely to give me any entitlement for that part of my mat leave. Interesting. His take was that it was discretionary. I couldn't be arsed to fight it.

Original poster
drosophila · 13/05/2006 10:12

\link{http://www.advicenow.org.uk/go/feature/feature_237.html?pkgid=27\ Here}
\link{
www.ombudsman.org.uk/about_us/FOI/whats_available/documents/hr_policies/maternity_leave.html#45\Another one}

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Original poster
drosophila · 13/05/2006 10:15

As I understand it you accrue leave at your contractual rate during the paid section of Mat Leave and fro the unpaid you accrue the Statutary Minimum which is 20day. I may have a fight on my hands as my employer is huge and they won't want to set a precedent. They shouldn't have sent me on the course thenGrin. I have more links that pretty much say the same thing but the EOC do suggest it's not that straight forward.

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hunkermunker · 13/05/2006 10:16

Thank you, Drosophila - very interesting.

arfy · 13/05/2006 10:17

yes that's correct Dropsophilia - your normal entitlement during the paid bit and the statutory entitelyment during the additional bit

Original poster
drosophila · 13/05/2006 10:18

\link{http://www.eoc-law.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=2980\EOC link}. Interested to hear other Mums experience on this.

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hunkermunker · 13/05/2006 10:18

So if you take the full six months AML, does that mean an additional two weeks leave?

Don't do numbers...!

Original poster
drosophila · 13/05/2006 10:19

Arfy, is it that straight forward? My Employer actually has it written in their guidance that you won't accrue leave during the unpaid part and we employ 100,000 staff. How could they get it so wrong.

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Original poster
drosophila · 13/05/2006 10:20

I think so Hunker. I assume 6mths is half a year so half the 20day.

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Original poster
drosophila · 13/05/2006 10:21

Also you accrue during parental leave.

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arfy · 13/05/2006 10:32

I think they must mean you don't accrue your NORMAL holiday entitlement and that's how they get it wrong - I can remember reading something similiar in my employer's policy (and they were enormous as well) but then finding out that you do accrue the statutory holiday and being paid it in my redundancy package.

Original poster
drosophila · 13/05/2006 11:48

NO Arfy they are very specific. They say 'you will not accrue annual leave during your additional (unpaid) Maternity Leave'

It will be interesting when I return to work on Wed.

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notasheep · 13/05/2006 12:07

But there is no time to take the leave and depending on who you work for you cant carry it over-i lost most of my leave that way

arfy · 13/05/2006 12:17

I'm pretty sure mine said exactly that too dropsophila, but it wasn't true....I had to dig with HR to get the actual answer though if I remember rightly.
they were a bit silly sending you on that course weren't they!

Pruni · 13/05/2006 12:41

nas you take it at the end of mat leave, let's say you take 10 months off as mat leave, you'd have the normal holiday you'd have accrued over the first 6 months plus 4 months' worth of statutory pay (if six months is ten days, then 4 months is 10 over 6 times 4???) then you append that to your mat leave and are paid for that last little chunk. Rather than taking the full 12 months and losing when you can't carry it over.

Original poster
drosophila · 13/05/2006 13:08

I'm sure I read on one of the sites I attached that it is discrimanatory to not allow you to carry it over.

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changenamemum · 13/05/2006 13:14

Yes I accrued annual leave for both unpaid and paid. By the time I was due back to work I had accrued 37 days leave (as I was full time)(i then switched to part time and took my al over 18 weeks)(so in total took about 17 months off work)(and then i took voluntary redundancy)

Original poster
drosophila · 13/05/2006 19:25

Any other experiences out there? I would be especially interested in Gov Employees.

Thanks

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Surfermum · 13/05/2006 19:31

I work for the NHS and took a year off when I had dd. The last 5 weeks of it was annual leave and it was paid at full-time rate too. I knew I was entitled to the leave but couldn't believe it when I got my normal, full-time salary, I was expecting to get 13 hours per week pro rata, which is what I work now.

Littlefish · 13/05/2006 19:44

Drosophila or anyone else! Do you have any idea what the position is for teachers? I went on maternity leave in October 2004 and returned on 21st July 2005 (first day of the summer holidays). I presumed that I would go back to work my full time salary to finish the academic year and then would change to my pre-negotiated part time contract on 1st September 2005.

However, my headteacher said that if I wanted the part time contract, it had to begin on 21st July. It had never occurred to me to discuss the issue of accrued annual leave. Are there any teachers or lecturers out there who know anything about this? It meant that I lost out on about £1000.

Original poster
drosophila · 13/05/2006 19:53

No idea sorry but my guess is that you are probably owed something. It's quite tricky isn't it. Hopefully a teacher may be able to shed some light on it.

You were off for 9mths so I would have thought that you should have accrued your normal contractual leave for the first 6 mths and then a proportion of the statutary min (20days) for the 3 mths. WHo do teachers speak to about HR matters. Is it the LEA?

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tribpot · 13/05/2006 20:03

I work for the NHS. I was employed at 33 weeks pregnant, so not entitled to SMP (obviously!). I continued to accrue annual leave whilst on maternity leave, so when I came back in December, I basically had nearly an entire year's leave allowance to take before the end of the leave year in March.

Paid or unpaid, your entitlements accrue when you're on maternity leave. In some ways it's quite mad when you think about it, but the alternative is directly penalising you for having a baby. Not good either.

notasheep · 14/05/2006 10:30

Pruni-i made a huge mistake of taking 12 months maternity leave!!!!!!! and then only entitled to 3 days to carry overSad

Tinker · 14/05/2006 10:48

Very interesting drosophila! Thought I didn't have enough to get me to summer hols but seems I may do.