Accrued leave, please help!

[Spottedbag]

I am on maternity leave and due back at work on 1 December 2013. I had planned to take parental leave during December, which is my statutory right but HR just told me that if I took parental leave in December, I would loose all the leave I accrued during maternity leave (31 days). I would only be allowed to carry over the usual five days [schock]. Is this correct?

In any case I won't be able to take the whole 31 days during December it can surely not be right to cancel my remaining leave just because I went on maternity leave in December iyswim.

Work is acting in a very covert ways not confirming or denying what my right regarding pantaloons leave are grrrrrrrrrrr.

Please, can anyone tell me if I have a right to carry over more than 5 days leave should I decide to take parental leave during December.

Thank you!!

Sorry autocorrect

Work is acting in a very covert ways not confirming or denying what my rights regarding parental leave are.

Details of your rights are here:

Apparently "The limit on how much parental leave can be taken a year is 4 weeks (unless the employer agrees otherwise).

Unless an employer agrees otherwise, or the child is disabled, leave should be taken in blocks of one week."

So it doesn't sound like taking the month of December off is usual within the bounds of parental leave. Also I assume you're not expecting to be paid for December?

Sorry, forgot to put in the link!

www.gov.uk/parental-leave/overview

So I am entitled to four weeks parental leave in December but what I would like to understand is:

am I entitled to carry the paid annual leave which I have accrued during ml over into the new year or only 5 days? It seems unfair to women who go on ml during December to loose part of their accrued annual leave as even without taking parental leave in December, I wouldn't be able to use up all of the 31 days leave which I have now accrued...

Hello. Firstly its sounds like you aren't entitled to four weeks parental leave, your employer is within rights to limit you to a week. Parental leave was not intended as an extension of paid maternity leave.

However if you cannot carry over the accrued holiday they should pay you for it. You cannot be expected to take holiday when not in work.

I forgot most employers don't pay for parental leave. Apologies.

If you can't use all your holiday before the end of the holiday year (which I assume from your OP runs from 1 Jan to 31 Dec?) your employer has to let you carry it over. But they could expect you to take what holiday you can in this holiday year, and if you don't, I don't think they have to let you carry it over.

I don't know what your employer pays during parental leave but the legal minimum is no pay at all during parental leave, so it might work out better for you to take holiday for December instead, and get paid in full for that month. Alternatively, you could see if your employer would be prepared to pay you in lieu of holidays, so that you give up some or all of the accrued holiday in return for pay and then start the new holiday year with the normal amount of annual leave (plus any carried over holidays which you haven't been able to use or been paid for).

Think its getting confusing what you want.

You plan to finish maternity leave in Dec and wanted to take 4 weeks parental leave.
You still have 31 days Annual leave left and your leave year runs until the end of December.
If you take parental leave you can't use annual leave or carry over more than 5 days.
Why can't you take AL in December then request parental leave?

Why wouldnt you use the Annual Leave in.Ecember?

Your employer is not allowed to prevent you taking annual leave, but they are not doing that.

They are allowed to apply their normal rules with regard to holiday carry over and other rules they may have, as long as the effect isn't that the employee can't take the holiday at all.

If you are opting to request parental leave when you could take your holiday, they are not preventing you taking it, so can apply their normal carry over rules.

My employer only lets you carry over more of your holiday entitlement than normal if you tack it straight onto your maternity leave period.

EG
mat leave runs 2/11/2012 - 1/11/2013
holiday year runs 1/9/2012 - 31/08/2013

at the start of mat leave I have 10 days holiday (AL) outstanding.
I can be paid for the 10 days AL upon return to work.
I can start 10 days AL from 1/11/2013
I can take 7 days Al from 1/11/2013 and carry over 3 days AL as per every other staff member.

If I used parental leave for the 1/11/2013 my carry over would default to the same as everyone else ie 3 days.
If I returned to work on the 1/11/2013 for just one day and then wanted to use the 10 days AL 7 would have been lost as they were not tacked straight on to end of maternity leave

This is just my emplyer by the way not sure how it holds up against all the other.

Clear as mud isn't it.

Great, thanks everyone!