Holidays & Mat Leave

[daisynova]

I am slightly confused by all this. My leave year starts from January when I will be entitled to 25 days holiday for the year. My mat leave starts in January too and I plan on taking the full year's mat leave so does that mean that in that year, I can also take the 25 days holiday?

Well in my work (local council) you can carry over the unused leave into the next leave year when on mat leave. So that could mean 2 years worth of leave in one year. However we are allowed to accrue leave for paid and unpaid mat leave.
I have to say that carring over of large amounts of leave is generally frowned on though.
You need to check your terms and conditions whether you can do this though.

Would you be better taking a few weeks leave onto the end of your maternity leave this would use up your leave and you would get paid for it.

While you are on OML you are still classed as employed, so you still continue to accrue Annual Leave. I'm not sure what the rules are on AML because they've recently changed.

I was thinking of taking the holiday entitlements from the start of January so that my mat leave can start in February. I hate my job badly and can't wait to stop working there.

I asked the same question it is on this page titled 'Maternity leave and holiday allowance' Sorry - dont know how to do links, etc. Have a look as there is some good advice from some HR gurus including some links courtey of flowery. In a nutshell you should get your normal holiday allowance for the first 6 months (so in my case I get 5 weeks per year which works out to be 2.5 weeks over 6 months) followed by the statutory minimum for the second six months. The stat minimum is (I think) 4.8 weeks which can also include bank holidays so that would obviously be 2.4 weeks over the remaining 6 months.

off to bed but here's micegg's thread

Thanks girls - just found the link whilst having a little stroll round the website. It's very helpful as it now means I can stop work literally a week ago - woo hoo!