Annual leave entitlement for part time maternity cover role

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Could anyone help me ASAP with the calculations for this role? Terms were advertised for a full time person but I'll be working 3 days per week - 9 month contract. Full time person would get 24 days, plus 8 bank hols, plus another 6 days 'tied' to bank hols. They're saying my A/L entitlement would be 9.5 days inclusive of all those things.

I'll be working Wed-Fri so I guess I miss out on most of the bank holidays and tied days. But even without them I'm seeming to calculate more! And I've also found something on a government website saying part time should get the equivalent of 5 weeks A/L a year, which that wouldn't be - is that correct?

Is it a 1 year contract? Also, is a full time working week worked over 5 days?

That definately seems too low. The legal minimum is 5.6 weeks per year so 5.6*9/12 in your case so 4.2 weeks I.e over 12 days in 9 months. But they also shouldn't treat part time workers different to full time - so you should be entitled to the pro-rata share of the extras full timers get. Not working Monday should not matter. I would ask for clarification of their calculation.

9 month contract, working 3 days per week. I've now seen that ACAS also concur that it should be equivalent to 5.6 weeks a year. Which pro rata'd for 9 months means 12 days I think?

Sorry, can see it's a 9mo contract (in which case you wouldn't accrue the full entitlement so the 5 weeks thing goes out the window) - still seems low though. Even without the bank holidays and tied days I make it 11 days. Are there any compulsory closures (e.g. Christmas) that they might have deducted days for?

Ricstar thank you that's a really helpful confirmation of what I thought. I feel more confident pushing back on the overall level, but wasn't sure about the tied days thing. Is there any legal basis for pushing back, do you have any links? Thanks so much!

mum thank you - again really helpful to know I'm not the only one struggling to see how they've calculated this. Will politely ask to see their calculations!

Are you working for the full 9 months or is it term time only?

Working the full 9 months

They are not allowed to treat you less favourably than full time. You should still get the same number of days pro-rata including bank holidays.

A full time worker would get 38 days of paid leave in a full year (whether each specific day is a bank holiday or not is irrelevant). You are working 75% of the year on 60% of working days so that's 45% of a full time year. You are entitled to 45% of 38 days = 17 days.

Thanks imchlibob, do you know if there's any links for that? What I've found online seems to say that bank and tied holidays are at the discretion of the employer. For example in a Google search the uni of Oxford (not related to my field) specifically says bank and tied days don't apply if they're not your normal working days? If they're at discretion of employer I'm nervous to push back on both fronts and will just highlight the equivalent to 5.6 weeks thing!

The Oxford page specifically mentions 'although care should be taken to ensure that part-time staff are not disadvantaged by this method' - I think the disregarding of bank holiday would just be there so that there isn't an unreasonable discrepancy if for example someone gave notice on 4th December so had a last day of employment on 4th January such that in the new year 50% of the available days are bank holiday or tied additional day and that would screw up the calculations.

The overriding principle is that part time workers must not be treated less favourably. The extra days being at employers discretion just means that they can be withdrawn and don't form part of everyone's contractual terms. The employer does not have the discretion to give them to full time workers and not to part time workers

Look at the .gov.uk site for more guidance.

What lmchbob said. Discretion doesn’t mean “ok to treat part timers less favourably”

If I’ve calculated it properly, you should get 17 days.

Thank you all very, very much. I'll let you know how the conversation goes today!

They're saying it's because the leave year runs from November to October. I don't understand why that would change entitlement though. Does anyone have any viewpoint?! Surely that doesn't matter, they just need to tell me what the leave entitlement is for the 9 month contract?!

You are right, it makes no difference which 9 months it is you are working, the pro rata entitlement is what it is!

Unless they are saying that for the remainder of this current leave year you'll get x days, and then you'll get a new entitlement for the next leave year? That would be fine.

are they saying that you have that much leave for this leave year i.e. from now until November? or that much for the full contract?

Divide the number of hours of annual leave and bank holidays a full-timer gets in a year, by the number of hours a full-timer works in a week, and multiply that by the number of hours you work each week

Oh that might make sense. If eg you are working for 5.5 months before the end of the leave year then a full time employee would be getting 11 days ordinary a/l plus bank holiday & extra day x2 = 4 days for late may bank hol and august, you get 0.6 of that which would be 9 days. Then a similar calculation after the new leave year will give you the remaining entitlement to use for the remaining part of the job.

24+8+6=38

38 x 0.6 = 22.8

22.8/12x9 = 17.1

Then you’d have to take any bank holidays and tied days that fall in the period you’re working and the rest are yours to take as normal.

They might have worked out the bank hol/tied days based upon which ones fall in the period you’re going to be working rather than annually. Ask for a breakdown and they should be able to show their workings