Bank Holidays included in leave allowance?

[MiniCooperLover]

Is this usual now? I've been working self employed for a firm for a couple of years now (as well as other clients) in an admin role. They've asked me to become permanent staff and offered me a good deal to take account of the extra tax I'll need to pay. But when asked they mentioned 30 days holiday. Contract now says '22 days plus 8 bank holidays' which to me seems a very different proposition as our office is closed those days anyway. I've never had BH's included in my leave package before, however it's been 10 years since I've been 'permanent', though I've worked all that time. Thoughts?

I work in the public sector. We start with 23 days + 8 Bank Holidays, but 3 of the days have to be taken at Christmas. It jumps to 28 days after 5 years, then to 29 after another 5 years, then to 30. No more after you've reached 30.

If it was sold to you as a plus, I'd have expected 30+8

Otherwise it's a very normal amount of leave, just above the bare minimum, nothing exciting!

I think is is fair to be a bit disappointed that they hadn’t been express that this included BHs but they probably just assumed this was clear. As opposed to a deliberate bait and switch.

However 22 +BHs is certainly within normal in the private sector particularly for lower grade roles. And I would be surprised if they would be willing to give extra paid holiday for someone being recruited into an admin role.

You could have a chat with them though if this isn’t enough and see if there are arrangements you could make. Eg if you have kids you could look to take 1-2 weeks of parental leave per year - that is unpaid so you’d need to factor into overall earnings.

I get 32 days annual leave.
I have to work one bank holiday of my choice but if I wish to book any of the others, I use my annual leave to do so. If I don’t want to book them off and work them, that’s also my choice.

Yes. The office is closed but you get paid for it. So the bank holidays are not flexible leave - you take the actual bank holidays.

My employer opens for most of the bank holidays but shuts down in between Christmas and new year. These days are automatically taken off our annual leave hours.

OP I get you. My current employer does this but none of my previous employers did so I was a bit surprised and suspicious about it at first. In my case, it felt like there was an element of deceit since it was only later in the recruitment process did they explain that the advertised number of holidays included public holidays. Anyway since then I've learned it's relatively common but I still don't like it as a practice!

Bank holidays:
Bank or public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave.
An employer can choose to include bank holidays as part of a worker’s statutory annual leave.

I find it interesting that when people say 'admin role', it's often assumed by others that it's a lowly role, etc. I have always considered that Admin is essential to the running of any office and without good admin, things rarely work well.

Anyway, I guess what this thread has really brought home to me is how employment law has massively changed in the last 10/15 years, it's quite depressing to see, and also one of the reasons I was quite happy being self-employed.

Thank you for the input.

I guess it depends on sector. I can imagine being caught out by this too as I always see “xx days plus banks holidays” as the formula in job specs. It’s so standard that I’d be focussing on the number plus any entitlement to buy extra days or accrue them with service.

I get 25 days basic annual leave plus Bank Holidays and we can buy up to an additional 10 days leave if we want to. We also get 2 days off each year as company days but we take part in volunteering programmes on those days. I appreciate this is fairly generous.

I get 30 days plus 11 bank holidays (we get the Tuesdays after most bank holidays as well as the Monday) and I have always seen it written as ‘plus’ in adverts as it highlights the generous leave.

id be disappointed with 22 days

I think it depends on industry.

I've never come across this in an IT company, the financial sector and consulting.

I

I get 25 days plus Bank Holidays. This year my company decreed that you no longer have to use those days on the bank holidays - you can choose to work them and use them on other dates, which is fabulous
We also get our birthday off and can buy an extra 10 days , so basically we can get a max of 44 days
We also have agile working , which is basically toil :)

I agree that its normal to have holiday allowance this way (my work, and all my previous jobs don't BUT have all made clear than its x days PLUS bank holidays...I would therefore assume that if a contract or advert didn't explicitly clarify that annual leave allowance was in addition to bank holidays then it must include them).

However I disagree that "very few" workplaces give 30 days flexible holiday - its completely standard in pretty much all of the public sector - obviously with the caveat that in lots of places you need to maintain minimum staffing but that doesn't seem to be what you're referring to.

I can understand why if theyve offered you 30 days holiday then you wouldnt automatically include the bank holidays in that, I think employers have changed over the years, my former employer didnt used to include bank holidays as part of your annual entitlement until probably 5 years or so ago.

Retail work, I get 23 days plus bank holidays, previous job, 21 days plus bank holidays and the job before that 6.6 weeks including bank holidays but had to work them so could take them at other times.

It is just the terminology, there is a statutory minimum and if an organisation is just going with the minimum then it would include bank holidays. I have always worked standard office hours so my annual leave has usually been expressed as X days plus bank holidays. However if I worked somewhere like retail that is usually open on bank holidays, I would expect they would just say X days.

If I got an offer that said 30 days I would clarify if that included the BHs as 30 days not including bank holidays would be unusually high whereas 30 days including BHs is on the stingy side.

The current amount of statutory leave was introduced in 2009, so this has nothing to do with any changes in employment law.

Your last employer chose to give 6 days over statutory, this employer chose to give 2 days over statutory. As long as it's at least the minimum, companies can set their own leave allowances.

I'm not sure why you find this depressing. Do you think there should be a law that everyone gets exactly the same?

It’s worth checking what happens if there’s an additional bank holiday, as there was this year. If your contract says 22 + 8 bank holidays, would you be expected to use one of your 22 days to cover an additional bank holiday? Or would they give you an extra day that year?

22 days is on the lower end? I’ve never worked anywhere in UK with less than 25 days plus bank holidays. I would negotiate on this :)

My company only include bank holidays in AL for part time employees. If it falls on my working day I have to take leave. Annoyingly they didn't give us the extra one this year but as I don't work Mondays and therefore this massively works in my favour I'm not going to make too much fuss.