holiday pay and smp

[kerrching]

Hi all, wondered if anyone can help. Am currently on mat leave from my job - i work in an academic environment so holiday year runs from sept to sept. I get 6 weeks holiday per year and took all of my remaining 2013/2014 holiday prior to starting mat leave in april just gone.

My last SMP payment is in January. Am I able to request payment of any accrued holiday from 2014/2015 academic year after this? I have requested flexible working but have been told informally that its likely to be refused however I've not resigned yet as I'm not due back to work til April 2015 anyway.

If I was to resign, would I get my accrued holiday pay or would I lose it? I daren't ask our HR department as they are notorious for screwing up on these sorts of things.

Thanks for your help!

you can only get your paid holiday once your mat leave ends, so you can't have paid mat leave, then some paid holiday, then some unpaid mat leave. If your employer agrees, you can tag some accrued holiday onto the end, e.g officially end mat leave on 1st march then have annual leave for all of march and return to work on 1st April. However, your employer doesn't have to agree to this, and may have an official policy against it. If you don't return after mat leave the holiday pay for time accrued (half of your annual entitlement will have accrued Sept-April) should be yours, BUT if you've had any more than the statutory minimum mat pay you will owe them the difference between what you got and statutory minimum - so that will probably wipe out all the balance and then you'll still owe them.