Maternity leave and accrued holiday

[cinemalovers]

I am leaving my job after maternity leave. My role no longer exists and we have reached a compromise agreement where I receive 2 months pay and waive my right to return to work.

I was on statutory mat pay, which finished while we were discussing the compromise agreement. My mat leave officially ends in 2 weeks time.

I have asked to be paid for my accrued annual leave but the company says they will pay me the amount offered in the compromise agreement and will not negotiate further. The agreement does not mention mat leave and benefits.

Am I right in thinking the annual leave issue is a separate issue? Also, it is a small company so 100% of my mat leave costs should be repaid by hmrc. (This is definitely true for maternity pay, not sure about leave though)

Does anyone have any useful knowledge in this area?

What the settlement includes is something to negotiate with your employer. Are they paying for you to get legal advice on the agreement? Your solicitor should be doing this.

They definitely need to pay you for your leave.

No they don't Trooper. The settlement could include accrued annual leave, that's for negotiation.

If they didn't mention it in your discussions, I'd assume it's a separate issue and you should be paid for it.

It is standard practice for your company to provide a sum for you to engage a solicitor to lokk through the agreement. it is a legally binding document so important that a legal person reviews it. There is no requirement to account for leave owing separately the CA should include details of all payments due to you on leaving.

Thanks everyone. The fee provided is not enough to cover any more discussions with a solicitor - I have had two meetings with her and any more will go beyond the allocated fee, so I can't afford any more help.

I think 2 meetings should have been ample time to look at the agreement, raise your concerns about holiday pay and have the solicitor explain the CA to you. What did you discuss with the solicitor?

Yes two meetings should have been sufficient. Presumably the agreement is clear that accrued annual leave is included in the figure?

Yes, it was a mistake on my part - I didn't realise the compromise agreement would affect my statutory rights and did not bring up this issue specifically with the solicitor. We did not go through the CA together, apart from the solicitor saying that it was fairly standard. I feel like a fool tbh - I should have read it more closely to begin with.

It doesn't affect your right to annual leave, you are entitled to pay for holiday accrued but not taken, but it's perfectly acceptable for a settlement to be inclusive of that, as long as it's clear. It's usual for a compromise agreement to state how the payment is made up, which would often be x amount representing notice, x amount for outstanding holiday, x amount for redundancy if that applies, and x amount as an ex gratia termination payment.

The payment says it is made up of £X 'in lieu of notice' and £X 'by way of compensation for loss of employment.' But later it says that I am waiving my right to all rights and benefits, including accrued holiday pay. So I should have picked up on it, but didn't. It is clearly my fault.

The problem now is that I either have to renegotiate the CA, and pay for the legal fees (which I can't afford), or just accept it. It's only a small amount of money but it makes a big difference to me.

Well, it's partly your fault but it's also your solicitors fault. I would get on to him/her, and day that he/she did not flag up that the amount was inclusive of annual leave accrued (which I would expect to see clearly laid out as I described) and you would like him/her to address this with your employer, and you don't expect their to be further fees as this should have been covered in the two meetings you've had and through him/her reviewing the agreement properly and advising you of its implications, which is exactly what he/she is paid to do. The whole point of your employer paying for legal advice is so you can get advised clearly of the implications of the agreement. The solicitor will have had to sign something for your employer confirming that you have been fully advised of those implications, which clearly you haven't been.

thanks, flowery