Civil service part time pattern - Mondays

[MegaMouseNorrie]

I'm a full time civil servant looking to put in a request to go part time. I currently work 37 hours a week over 5 days and want to do half time over 3 days, so 18.5 hours a week. If I work Mondays will I have to use holiday to cover half the day on each bank holiday? Would it therefore be better not to work Mondays? If I don't work Mondays would I still accrue half a bank holiday each time?

You are better off not working Mondays as most bank holidays fall then. There should be a part time leave calculator on your Intranet to work it out properly x

Thank you!

If Monday is not your not your normal working day, then no, to either query.

I work 4 days a week for Defra. I am allocated 4/5 annual leave and additional leave in lieu of bank hols equivalent 4/5 the bank holidays in a year (usually 8). I take a “bank holiday day” only if my normal working day falls on a BH. Because most BH are on Mondays I only “loose” in this arrangement if Christmas and New Year are on a Monday*, and generally “win” if they are not."

*4/5 bank holidays = 4/5 x 8 = 6.4 days in lieu BH.
The most amount of bank holiday Mondays is 7, ie: all of them except Good Friday, if Christmas and New Year are BH.

You get an additional allowance for your privilege days. So a/l is converted to hours and you’ll get 50%, and same for privilege leave/bank hold.

I was always quids in with leave when I worked PT 16 hours and didn’t work Mondays, as I never needed to use the priv leave allowance to cover Monday bank hols.

Don't work mondays if you can avoid it. I've worked part time including Mondays. You'll get a pro rata amount of bank hols e.g. 4 days if 0.5 fte. However, if there are more than 4 bank hols falling on Mondays during the year you'll have to take the rest out of your annual leave allowance. It feels unfair as my colleague worked the 2nd half of the week and generally was able to use some of her bank hol entitlement as leave (i.e take whenever she wanted rather than on specified bank hol days)

My understanding is no, you won't actually lose out on holiday if you work Mondays, but you will have less choice about when to use your leave, since you will be forced to use some for the bank holidays.

So it depends on how important flexibility in when you can take your leave is for you.

What Pea said. Not working Mondays gives you the same amount of leave, but more flexibility about when you take it.

But it also depends on the nature of the job, when regular meetings fall etc. If key Ministerial meetings are on Mondays, then it may well be sensible to work them.

You are entitled to pro rated bank holidays for the number of hours you work. You want to work half time so will be entitled to 4 of those bank holidays in your leave entitlement.
I am NHS and our policy is that the bank hols are added to annual leave and that is your combined entitlement. Each time a bank holidays falls on a working day the number of hours you should have worked that day is deducted from your entitlement. If a bank holiday falls on a non working day there is no deduction.
There are 4 bank holidays guaranteed to fall on a Monday and if you not work this day there is no deduction from your leave in our policy.

@AnUnlikelyCombination assuming civil service is the same as NHS, you loose out a lot by working a full day on a Monday when you're part time. If you work 50% hours you receive 50% leave allowance (ie 4 days). In a year where Christmas/new year fall on working days you can end up taking 5 or 6 days leave for bank holidays.
@MegaMouseNorrie if you're being asked yo work Mondays could you ask to be allowed to swap a day later in the week for a bh? My manager occasionally lets me do this so it balances out.

Never work Mondays and just remember you need to factor in good Friday into your public and privilege leave calculations as well. Always use your p and p allowance first then your a/l.

Thanks everyone for confirming that for me. Will definitely try to avoid Mondays!

I think you need to check with your HR team. I thought that once you worked part time you were automatically put onto a formula where you get given some additional leave as the proportion of bank holidays you are entitled to (in your case 50%) but then this is automatically also deducted when a working day for you is actually a bank holiday. So I don’t think it should make much of a difference. But worth checking as different places might have different systems.