[Gllug] VACANCY: Linux Systems Administrator

[Jason Clifford]

On Wed, 2012-03-21 at 09:56 +0000, Simon Wilcox wrote:
> In a typical governmental sleight of hand, whilst they increased the 
> statutory holiday allowance to 28 days they also removed the requirement 
> (if indeed it was ever explicitly there) to give people bank holidays off.

There has never been any entitlement to bank holidays off as extra to
the holiday entitlement of your employment in the UK. The entitlement
was previously 4 weeks (which equates to 20 days for full time
employees) including bank holidays. A couple of years ago the government
agreed to implement EU changes firstly to 24 days and then to 28 days so
that the entitlement would be 4 weeks plus bank/public holidays. These
figures are for full time employees. Part time employees are entitled
pro rata.

> Companies are also entitled, although I'm not entirely sure if it's 
> under statute or just via employment contract, to mandate when you take 
> holidays. Many companies for instance will close down between Christmas 
> and New Year and insist that those days be taken from your annual 
> entitlement.

That has always been the case.

> Combine the two and you get 28 days holiday of which 8 are mandated to 
> be the bank holidays. So right back at square one of 20 'real' days per 
> year.

No. Previously you could have had 12 days plus bank holidays. Now it's
20 plus. That is a net gain for most people.

> Employment contracts should have been updated to reflect this but of 
> course what should happen and what actually happens are two different 
> things.

They didn't need to be. The statutory change automatically changed all
employment contracts that needed to be changed.

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