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With the holiday season now behind us, we reflect on holiday entitlements and update you on current developments.

Holiday entitlement during long term sick leave

The case of Stringer, which concerned a holiday pay claim of less than £20, has now been decided by the House of Lords. Regrettably this has not clarified all the issues concerning this subject but has left the current position as follows:
  • Statutory holiday entitlement continues to accrue during periods of sick leave.
  • Payments in lieu of untaken statutory holiday on termination of employment are unaffected by time off for illness.
  • The safest interpretation of the current statutory provision, is to allow employees to take paid holiday during sickness absence.

Outstanding issues will have to await further case law and some changes to statute before they can be resolved.

Maternity leave and holiday
Maternity leave will often span two leave years and therefore taking full holiday entitlement may prove problematic. The issue of being able to carry over leave to another year is a difficult one. Although there is some direction in the Working Time Regulations the issue remains unclear and further case law is required.

The ‘safest’ approach is to encourage such an employee to take as much of her holiday entitlement as she can prior to starting her maternity leave and where necessary carry over any unused holiday to the following year.

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Religious holidays: discrimination issues
Employers need to be aware of the potential discrimination issues when holiday is requested in order to observe a religious holiday or festival. It is important to ensure that any refusal is based upon strong business reasons only and are not related to any religion or belief. 		 

A clear policy for granting or refusing holiday requests will obviously help in these circumstances.

Disciplinary and Grievance Procedure Update................
The new disciplinary and grievance procedure introduced in April retained the rules on the right to be accompanied. This states that in any disciplinary or grievance meeting an employee has the right to be accompanied by a fellow employee or union representative.

However recent case law has added a further category which means that in some limited circumstances it is possible for an employee to be accompanied by a solicitor. This is only in cases where the consequences of the disciplinary will have a significant impact on an employees ability to work within their fi eld of employment eg where the disciplinary concerns the breach of a professional requirement, such as a doctor behaving inappropriately towards a patient.

Statutory Redundancy Pay Increase
For redundancies taking place after 1st October 2009 the statutory redundancy pay award is increasing to £380 per week from £350 per week.

Executive and Non-Executive Directors
We are often asked if there is a difference between executive and non executive directors. In fact the Companies Act makes no distinction between executive and non executive directors which means that all directors have the same duties responsibilities and liabilities.

Statutory Demands
If your business is owed £750 or more, you can issue a statutory demand against the debtor. The relevant form can be found at www.insolvency.gov.uk. The form needs to be completed with details of the debt and served on the address of the debtor ( if the debtor is an individual) or the registered offi ce ( if the debtor is a company). Once served the debtor then has 21 days to pay the debt. If the debt remains unpaid, and the debtor does not apply to court to have the demand set aside, you can apply to court for the debtor to be made bankrupt (in the case of an individual) or for the debtor to be wound up (in the case of a company).
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