The Government has launched a consultation on the calculation of holiday entitlement for part-year and irregular hours workers.
This follows the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Harpur Trust v Brazel, which provided that holiday entitlement for permanent part-year workers should not be capped at 12.07% of their annualised hours or pro-rated so that it is proportionate to that of a full-time worker – even though this would entitle part-year workers to a higher holiday entitlement in comparison to part-time workers who work the same total number of hours across the year.
Seeking to address this disparity, the Government proposes to introduce a holiday entitlement reference period for part-year and irregular hours workers, to ensure that their holiday pay and entitlement is directly proportionate to the time they spend working. The proposal is to implement a 52-week holiday entitlement reference period for these workers, which includes weeks where no work if performed/no remuneration is earned. Holiday pay for workers with irregular hours is currently calculated using a 52-week reference period, but any week without work/remuneration is excluded in calculating their average weekly pay (and an earlier week taken into account).
The Government also wants to understand how holiday entitlement is currently calculated for agency workers and how the consultation proposal might be implemented.
The consultation closes on 9 March 2023 and can be accessed here.
Sobia Ahmad comments:
“This consultation continues the saga of Harpur Trust v Brazel and seeks to address the disparity caused by the Supreme Court’s controversial decision. The proposals put forward would result in a more balanced outcome, and would simplify the complex and time-consuming task of calculating holiday entitlement for part-year and irregulars hours workers (since a blanket reference period of 52 weeks can be used in each case, regardless of whether there were some weeks in which no work was carried out). Employers who are affected by the decision (such as those in education or agriculture) should make sure their views are heard by responding to the consultation before it closes on 9 March 2023.”
For more information, please get in touch with a member of the team.
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