Following a recent  Supreme Court ruling (Harpur Trust v Brazel) workers who are employed on an ongoing Zero Hours, Irregular Hours or Term Time contract basis are entitled to the full, minimum statutory holiday entitlement of 20 days plus 8 bank holidays / 5.6 weeks per year, regardless of the fact that they only work for a proportion of the year.  (This does not apply to part time workers who work fixed hours and days – they should still receive their holiday entitlement pro-rata).

In addition, holiday pay must now be paid when the worker takes their annual leave and be paid at the worker’s average rate of pay over the previous 52 weeks.

Further details regarding the changes and requirements are provided below.

In summary this means that:

1. If you are currently spreading holiday pay over the year by adding an amount (eg 12.07%) on top of your worker’s weekly / monthly pay (often referred to as “rolled up holiday pay”) or you are saving any holiday pay in a pot for the worker to draw down upon request, then you need to stop doing this ASAP as you are breaching employment law.
2. You need to review the wording in your contracts for Zero Hours, Irregular Hours or Term Time workers and ensure that they accurately reflect the changes.
3. You need to write to any impacted employees to inform them of the changes.

Important – The risk: Please be aware that you may be at risk of a backdated claim for holiday pay owed. Currently employees are able to submit a backdated claim for up to 3 months, however a further case is currently with the Supreme Court which may set a precedent for employees to submit claims going back further in time.

General guidance on holiday pay click here

Full details can be found here

If you need any help or advice regarding this, please get in touch.

[email protected]

07913 121290

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