Annual leave during sick and maternity leave across leave years

[Christmasisover]

Hi

Could someone please tell me where I stand? I went off sick early in my pregnancy due to severe HG and so my maternity leave and sick leave took me across two annual leave year. I couldn't use any of my holiday. When I went back to work they said I could only carry one lot of holiday forward and that I would lose a whole year's entitlement. Is this correct?

You can't lose statutory holiday (first 20 days), possibly first 28 days depending on how they calculate it & how they treat bank holidays.

ACAS would be able to help you work it out if you rang them x

That's what I thought but they say that after one year you lose it as you can only carry it forward to the next leave year -not 2! 🤷🏽‍♀️

Have a look at your work policy. I think I have heard this where you can carry from one year to the next but not the year after. That's not tosay its correct though so contact ACAS or I think there's a website called pregnant then screwed that could have information

This is from ACAS:

"The holiday carries over to the next leave year. If you go back to work in that year, you should take it then. If you’re still off at the end of that year, you can carry it over for another 6 months. That means you can only carry it over for a total of 18 months. If you don’t take it by then, you’ll lose it."

I believe the law allows for 4 weeks of leave to be carried over, if unable to be taken due to long term sick. BUT it must be taken within 18 months. Obviously your maternity leave complicates things (can’t take leave if you’re on leave) so I’d contact ACAS to find out exactly where you stand.

Thanks all! I do feel like I've been totally screwed over by being pregnant at the wrong time. lol I will contact ACAS tomorrow and see where to go from there.

It's worth seeking advice from ACAS but as another option can you ask whether they're prepared to pay you the annual leave rather than take it? My employer has recently paid me for some of mine that I couldn't take before the end of the year as they wanted me back at work and not to take anymore time off before I returned.

This explains sick pay and annual leave https://www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave#:~:text=Sick%20leave%20and%20holiday&text=Any%20statutory%20holiday%20entitlement%20that,they%27re%20off%20work%20sick.

You definitely carry over your annual leave and, because you were on mat leave, you couldn’t take it. You therefore are entitled to the carried over leave and the leave accrued during mat leave.

Talk to ACAS. I think the case law for the sick leave is Stringer vs HMRC.

The maternity leave annual leave can be carried over, whether the holiday from the previous year will depend whether you could have taken it between returning to work from hg and going onto maternity leave.