Court Case that Affects Annual Leave Entitlement for Part-Year or Term-Time Workers
If you employ “term-time” or “part-year” workers, the recent court case of Brazel v Harpur Trust could put your current annual leave entitlement calculation in jeopardy of being unlawful.
The outcome of the court case was that a music teacher, Mrs Brazel argued she was receiving less fair treatment in terms of annual leave entitlement than she should be, because she only worked during term-times. Harper Trust were calculating Mrs Brazel’s holiday entitlement as guided by ACAS. Using her previous working 12 weeks’ average pay multiplied by 12.07%.
The court ruled that the legislation did not justify pro-rating the holiday for a “part-year” employee. Therefore, these employees should still receive the statutory 5.6 weeks equivalent annual leave.
For example, if a caretaker was only employed for 39 weeks of the year, they should still be entitled to 5.6 weeks holiday, whatever this equates to. When the caretaker takes annual leave, the employer should use the prior 12 worked weeks hours and use the average, to calculate one weeks leave entitlement.
It’s also worth noting that from April 2020, the 12-week reference period will be increasing to 52 weeks. So, a 52-week average will need to be used, rather than only 12 weeks. Where an employee hasn’t been employed for 52 working weeks, all of the employee’s working weeks since their start date should be used.
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