Our previous Newsletter Bulletin advised that the Law has recently changed in terms of holiday accrual during maternity leave.
During maternity leave employees continue to build up paid holidays as if they were at work. When they return to work after maternity leave their total holiday entitlement will be the same as normal.
How does this affect bank holidays that occur during the maternity leave period?
If there is a bank holiday during the employee's maternity leave they would not be automatically entitled to take a day off at another time(does the contract of employment allow for this?). However if you allow employees who are sick on a bank holiday to take a day off in lieu (this is unusual) you could argue that it would be sex discrimination to refuse to allow a woman on maternity leave to do the same.
In most cases now that the minimum amount of paid annual holiday entitlement is 28 days it will make little difference as the employee will accrue 28 days in the leave year, regardless of being away from work on maternity leave. So for example if an employee is contractually entitled to 25 days leave plus public holidays how many days will they accrue during a 12 month maternity leave period, that covers the whole of the leave year? The answer would be 28 days, in accordance with The Working Time Regulations.
All employees have a statutory right to 28 days holiday a year (pro-rata if they work part-time). This entitlement was increased to 28 days a year from 1st April 2009. Note that the 28 days statutory holiday can include Bank Holidays.