Annual Leave During Unpaid Maternity Leave

[BumpedUp]

Hi everyone,

I was just wondering if you could give me some advice?

My company offer an occupational maternity scheme which offers full pay for 24 weeks, SMP for 15 weeks and then 13 weeks of unpaid leave.

I noticed though that in the maternity policy, it says that only the first 26 weeks count “as service for the purpose of calculating annual leave”. It also states that I’m only entitled to public holidays occurring during those first 26 weeks.

My question is, am I not legally entitled to accrue my annual holidays throughout the full year of maternity leave? I don’t mind about missing out on the public holidays.

Currently my contract states 25 days of annual holiday and there are 12 public holidays listed.

Thank you.

Are you in the U.K.? There are only eight public holidays in the U.K.

Hi, yes I’m in the UK (NI) my public/bank holidays are listed separately in my contract.

I would double check this with HR I only get SMP and am accruing all of my normal holiday and the bank holidays

Northern Ireland has very different employment laws. You would possibly be best checking with your union or CAB.

Northern Ireland has very very similar employment laws, identical in many respects, just enacted with separate pieces of legislation due to the jurisdiction.

Holiday accrual is the same see here.

Thank you 😊