Work say I can’t carry over A/L to add onto maternity leave

[ALquery]

I work in local authority and my annual leave year is the same as the calendar year.

I’m pregnant and my baby is due in September, so let’s say my twelve months maternity leave would run from September-August.

Work are saying that I can’t carry over any of my 2024 annual leave allowance (to add on to the end of my maternity leave), bar three days. They are saying I have to use it all up before the baby is born in September.

I don’t think this is right, but they are adamant. Can anyone confirm if they are right please? Thank you.

I think this is quite standard. Surely you can jus my use your holiday up in September so if you have two weeks take first two weeks of your maternity leave as holiday rather than actual maternity leave? That’s what I did so I was off from 17/12 but my maternity leave didn’t start until 1/1

You are allowed to carry over your AL. Straight from citizens advice “You build up holiday as normal while you’re on maternity leave.
If you can’t take your holiday because you’re on maternity leave, your employer should let you carry over up to 5.6 weeks of unused days (28 days if you work 5 days a week) into your next holiday year.”
I started my maternity in September. My holidays run from April-march, so I hadn’t taken all my leave and carried it over.

@jrother her employer is allowing her to build up holiday in the jan-sep 2025 portion of her mat leave. What they want her to do is use up her 2024 holiday allowance (which is already “granted”) before she goes on mat leave, and their argument is that she can.

So the point “if you can’t take your holiday because you are on maternity leave” only applies to the 2025 allowance, in their view, given there is a large chunk of 2024 when OP is not on mat leave.

OP will accrue annual leave while on maternity leave. She is able to take her holidays for this year before her maternity leave as she still has time to do so. It's only if you arent able to take it beforehand that you can carry it over

They're not wrong because OP hasn't started her maternity leave yet. She has time to take her holidays for 2024 and then she will accrue holidays while she is on maternity leave which she can then take when she returns to work in a different annual leave year.

When i was pregnant I had to do exactly this, so took a few half days to shorten my weeks. This meant I could remain at work longer than I had thought as shorter weeks made it less tiring. Not sure if you could do this.

Yes, this was the same for me. Could only carry over five days to the next leave year.

I went on ML at 36 weeks and took 4 weeks AL before that, so finished work at 32 weeks. Or depending on your work/commute you might find it helpful to use the leave to reduce the number of days you work per week as you head into the third trimester.

Then I had 52 weeks off, plus 6 weeks AL for that year so had about 14 months off in total.

Several colleagues used the accrued leave to return to work effectively part-time and then build up to full time.

What does your policy say though? That's what you need to check? I think they are reasonable to expect you to take 75% of your 2024 AL in 2024 (presuming it runs Jan to Dec) as you have 75% of the year to be able to take this before going on mat leave. The rest you should be able to carry over as you can't take it whilst on mat leave.

Of course it affects employers. They expect employers to take 4 weeks throughout the year of AL but to carry it over and add another 3 or 4 weeks accrued to take potential 7 weeks extra time off/paid full time whilst being expected to also pay their maternity cover full time and/or not have a maternity cover as they have only budgeted for 1 year cover, and the employee takes 14 months off due to accrued leave then that leaves 2 months of someone not doing the work whilst being paid their AL. So for some companies it would be reasonable to expect an employee to take most of their AL during their working year if going on mat leave towards the end of the AL year. It sounds like OP could quite reasonably have taken a week here and there as you would usually during the year and only carry forward the BH holidays accrued during the mat leave plus the 1 week you are allowed to c/f as standard.

This is not legal - maternity leave automatically kicks in on the day of the baby’s birth.

To the PP who asked how I get 36 days - it’s 28 days’ A/L then eight bank holidays.

Yes, I can easily use up all of 2024’s A/L before the baby is here but I really don’t want to. I’d like to work as late as possible and spend the annual leave in the final three months (unpaid).

As it is, it seems there is no way round it. I can only carry over the three days allowed plus two days for Christmas and Boxing Days, total only five days. I’ll be going back to work earlier than 12 months. It’s a real shame.

Edit to add - my job doesn’t need maternity cover. Hard to explain but we all have our set work and if we don’t do it, no one else does it. So the LA won’t have any additional costs in getting maternity cover.

Could you either go back slightly earlier, in the unpaid last three months, so that becomes paid holiday instead? And also do the maximum KIT days then (is it ten?)?

Seems right to me.
My employer pays accrued a/l at the end if the year if for any reason a pregnant women/new mum couldn't take it eg premature labour.
Only 3 days can be carried by any employee in any circs.

This happened rk me so I took what annual leave I had left I think it was two weeks, then started mat leave after the annual leave had finished. You still get the extra time just adding it to the beginning rather than the end.

I think this is actually fair for the employer, but I see why you wish to do it,you’re trying to have more paid leave in the next year, than you’re entitled to. Carrying 3 day over is fine, you;L just have to take hols as normal,

I think it's encouraged to take what you can before you start leave. I started mat leave in April which is when my leave year starts so obvs couldn't use much leave and had to carry over to the next year.

You can't do KIT days when you are on annual leave, has to be in maternity period.

Assuming you’re not planning to work right until the day you give birth, I’d take A/L first and then starts maternity leave…..

Also you need to remember you actually accrue AL when on ML so you’ll still have some days of when you get back the following year.

sorry missed your last post…

I know many women who said they were working until the last minute. Me included.
We all found that the last month of pg was much more tiring than anticipated. I’d keep at least 2 weeks off for yourself before the birth tbh.

Most people want to be off work for a few weeks before baby comes anyway, so you officially start "maternity leave" on your due date and you take a block of annual leave immediately before that.

The only fundamental difference is that you get paid for the annual leave a year earlier than if you tacked it on the end.

There are still ways of stretching it out a bit at the end - eg. When you drop down to the unpaid mat leave, could you split that first month as 2-3 weeks unpaid and 1-2 weeks annual leave, that may bring in similar £ to your paid months of mat leave, then annual leave for another 4 weeks? That gets you to 11 months off once baby has arrived, plus extra paid time off as annual leave the for the weeks before baby arrives.

Even better if you can stretch to 6 weeks unpaid, and then 6 weeks paid annual leave, to get full 12 months extra. I did this and did few kit days in the unpaid weeks to get bit of £ in

Same position everyone is in, but disappointing as you didn’t realise you couldnt bank more of this years a/l too

You really won't want to work in the 9th month of pregnancy.

Remember you will accrue a full year's worth of annual leave while you are on maternity leave. That leave can't be taken in advance and you will be allowed to tack that onto the end of your mat leave - they are not allowed to have Ts&Cs that deny you this right or prevent you from taking it. This rule prevents you from having 2 years of paid annual leave to use up.

Remember you will accrue a full year's worth of annual leave while you are on maternity leave.

This is my entire point - work are saying I have to take 1/3rd of that accrued leave before I go on maternity leave.

From how I am reading this the LA want you to take 2023-2024 leave before you go off in September, barring the couple of roll over days.

Then during your mat leave from Jan to whenever you choose to return you will accrue leave, so if you decide your actual return is may (end of Smp) you could use several weeks to actually return in June.

I seem to remember I had to take as much leave as possible and then I saved so I could take 11 months off in total with 1 month of leave, so only had to fund 6 weeks unpaid and 3 months of half pay. (I am in LA too)

I think you've misunderstood OP. While you are on maternity leave in 2025 you will get 25 days plus any bank holidays you're normally entitled to. Eg. If you return September 2025, you get the 3 days you don't take this year plus your 25 days for 2025 plus 6 days of BHs, so you will still have loads.

On my first maternity leave I had a lot of holiday so ended up using it to cut down my working week, 2 days holiday 3 days working.