Extra Bank Holiday for the Royal Wedding

All employees are entitled to a minimum of 5.6 weeks paid annual leave, which includes the 8 bank holidays.

The Government recently announced that the Royal Wedding on the 29th April is an extra public holiday. But does this really mean an extra day’s holiday pay for all employees?

Contrary to popular belief, some employees may not have a contractual right to take the Royal Wedding as an extra day’s paid annual leave in 2011.

To see if you have a contractual right to the Royal Wedding day you will need to check the precise wording in your contracts. They will only be due the day as a paid holiday where the contract enables them to do so.

If your contract specifies that employees are entitled to take x days/weeks as annual leave ‘plus bank holidays’ or ‘plus all bank holidays’, this would give rise to a contractual entitlement to take the special bank holiday as an additional day of paid annual leave. Please remember to pro-rata this entitlement for part-time employees.

If the contract specifies that the employee is entitled to take x days/weeks as annual leave ‘plus eight bank holidays, or it names the specific bank holidays that can be taken, then this would not give rise to a contractual entitlement to the special bank holiday as an extra day of paid annual leave, as their entitlement is only to the 8 bank holidays or those that have been specifically named.

Also if your contract states that the holiday entitlement is x days/weeks including bank holidays then again there would be no contractual right to this extra days holiday as the bank holidays are already included in the x days/weeks entitlement.

Employees would need to make a holiday request in the normal way if they wished to take the 29th April 2011 off work, and a business would be able to refuse such a request if there is a legitimate business reason to do so.

This will also be the case in 2012 as there is an extra bank holiday on the 4th June 2012 for the Queens diamond jubilee, the late spring bank holiday will also be delayed a week until the 5th June 2012, making this a possible 4 day weekend.

If you would like any further advice on this or any other Human Resources matters please contact Emma at the Oswestry office on Leg Street on 01691 654545 or email her with your query.