Annual leave and pro-rata bank holiday guidance

Our leave year runs from 1 April to 31 March.

If your leave year is not as above, to get an appropriate leave calculator, email BS_HRHub@lincolnshire.gov.uk.

There are eight bank holidays in the financial year which influence the calculation. The actual number in a financial year may vary, depending on when Easter falls or additional days.

Entitlements

Annual leave entitlements are in accordance with the table set out in the local scheme of conditions of service. All entitlements are calculated in hours, regardless of whether these are based on full or part time working patterns.

Your annual leave entitlement is detailed in your terms and conditions of employment.  We provide a spreadsheet annually to support these calculations, which is to be used for planning purposes only: 

All annual leave (except for Bodet/Kelio users) must be booked on Business World (BW).

BW shows your overall entitlement made up of your:

  • annual leave (shown separately), and
  • bank holiday entitlement

Qualifying period 

There is no qualifying period before you are entitled to receive annual leave. Entitlement arises on the first day of employment. 

Additional leave entitlement 

Additional leave entitlement is a maximum of five days (37 hours) of annual leave. It is valid on a pro-rata basis from the day you attain five years of continuous service. 

Bank holidays 

Nationally-declared bank holidays are paid time off, subject to the needs of the service. These are currently: 

  • New Year's Day 
  • Good Friday 
  • Easter Monday 
  • May Day Holiday 
  • Spring Bank Holiday 
  • Summer Bank Holiday 
  • Christmas Day 
  • Boxing Day 

Your annual leave entitlement depends upon your grade and length of service. 

You may start or leave employment part-way through the leave year. You are entitled to annual leave proportionate to the amount of service completed during the leave year. 

Bank holiday entitlement 

You are entitled to bank holidays. If you work part time you will have a pro-rata leave entitlement proportionate to the number of hours you work. If a bank holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday, then the leave day will fall on the day designated as a bank holiday. For example, if the 26 December is a Saturday then 28 December, which is the Monday, is generally the bank holiday.

If you work on days designated as bank holidays, you may be entitled to enhanced payments for time worked. For more details, read the local scheme of conditions of service. 

You do not need to book bank holidays in BW.  Deductions are made automatically if your work schedule reflects you normally work on a bank holiday.  No deductions are made if you do not work on a bank holiday.

If you work part-time with a standard five-day working pattern (working Monday to Friday and the same number of hours each day), BW will calculate your pro rata entitlement.  As you work each day, you are entitled to each bank holiday as they fall.  BW will show the appropriate deductions.

If you work full days but fewer than five days per week, holidays can be pro-rata and will be worked out in hours.

If you work part-time with your hours spread over several days with a different number of hours being worked each day it can be difficult to establish what should be deducted for a day’s leave.  For each day or half day taken as leave, the number of hours deducted from the overall entitlement will be the equivalent of how many hours you would be expected to work on that day. BW will manage these calculations for you.

You may be entitled to more hours as part of your bank holiday entitlement than the number of hours needed to cover them.  These extra hours can be used as annual leave at a time agreed by your manager.  BW will manage these calculations for you.

You may be entitled to fewer bank holiday hours than are required to cover the number of bank holidays which fall on your working days.  You will use annual leave to cover these bank holidays.  The adjustments will be shown on BW. 

Overall, everyone has the same proportion of total leave entitlement based on their contracted hours. 

Bank holiday entitlement may change each year if there are additional national bank holidays. BW will be updated to reflect any changes.

Guides to assist in calculations

Full-time employees 

You will have a bank holiday entitlement within your overall entitlement. BW will make the appropriate deductions for bank holidays.  

Standard working week (37 hours, Monday to Friday)  

You will work every weekday except for bank holidays, annual leave or additional leave.

This policy does not cover sick leave, disability leave or maternity leave. For these arrangements, please refer to the relevant policy. 

Non-standard working week (average of 37 hours, five days a week)  

A non-standard working week may be:  

  • Tuesday to Saturday  
  • or, different days each week which total an average of 37 hours a week

If this is your working pattern, you will need to operate your leave by using the overall entitlement. This includes both annual leave and bank holiday entitlement for that year.  

BW will make automatic deductions to cover any bank holidays that fall on a typical working day. 

You can book remaining leave on any other working day, in line with the needs of the service.  

Compressed hours 

You may work full-time hours over fewer than five days a week, such as a nine-day fortnight. 

Total leave entitlement should operate in hours. When the leave is booked the number of hours should be the average number of hours worked on each working day.  

As with other employees on non-standard working weeks, you will need to operate your leave by using the total leave entitlement. This includes both annual leave and bank holiday entitlement for that year.  

You will need to use your total leave entitlement to cover any bank holidays that fall on a typical working day. 

You can book remaining leave on any other working day, in line with the needs of the service. 

A week of leave will correlate to the number of hours which you would work that week. For example: 

  • Mr A (Grade 4) with less than five years' continuous service 
  • he works 37 hours over four days and is entitled to 32 days annual leave 
  • the standard working day is seven hours and 24 minutes 
  • 32 multiplied by 7.4 equates to 236.8 hours holiday entitlement 
  • Mr A has a usual working day of nine hours and 25 minutes 
  • 236.8 divided by 9.25 equates to 25.6 days of 9.25 hours annual leave 

Or:

  • Mr A works a 9-day fortnight
  • he works 74 hours (37 hours multiplied by 2) in 2 weeks
  • his average working day is 74 hours divided by 9 which is 8.22 hours
  • for a bank holiday that falls on a working day you can record it as either 8.22 hours or the hours that you were due to work that day

Changing of hours or leave entitlement part-way through a year

In these circumstances, a calculation of part-year total leave entitlement occurs. For example, based on an entitlement of 24 days (177.6 hours) and 8 days (59.2 hours) bank holiday: 

  • Mr C began a new appointment to a full-time post on 1 October 
  • he is entitled to a proportion of annual leave for October to March (182 days or six months) 
  • he is also entitled to a proportion of the bank holidays which fall within this timescale 
  • 177.6 hours divided by 365, multiplied by 182 days equates to 88.6 hours annual leave
  • 59.2 hours divided by 365, multiplied by 182 equates to 29.5 bank holidays
  • therefore, total leave is 118.1 hours
Part-time pro-rata entitlement 

As a part-time employee, you have a pro-rata amount of the overall number of bank holidays. This includes when a bank holiday does not fall on a typical working day. 

To calculate your annual leave each holiday year: 

  • calculate overall leave entitlement in hours (this includes bank holidays) 
  • deduct from this the hours for bank holidays, if they fall on a working day

Each holiday year this will vary. This is due to bank holidays falling on different days of the week. For example: 

  • Mr D (Grade 8) has over five years' continuous service.  He works 27 hours a week over five days:
    • Monday - six hours
    • Tuesday - six hours
    • Wednesday - six hours
    • Thursday - six hours 
    • Friday - three hours
  • 27 divided by five multiplied by 32 equates to 173 hours 
  • 27 divided by five multiplied by eight equates to 43 hours 
  • therefore, total leave is 216 hours 

Whenever Mr D has a day off, when he would typically work, the number of contracted hours he would have worked is deducted. For example, deduct six hours for a Monday and three hours for a Friday.

Part-time employees with variable hours  

As a part-time employee, you have a pro-rata amount of the overall number of bank holidays. This includes when a bank holiday does not fall on a typical working day. 

When you book a day of leave, you need to book the number of working hours for that day. 

A week of leave is either:  

  • the number of hours in an average week  
  • or, the hours which you would have worked for that week 
Part-time employees that work on days which are not usually bank holidays 

Overall entitlement will need to be used to cover annual leave and any bank holidays that fall on a normal working day.

You can take your remaining leave on any other working day as agreed by the manager in line with the needs of the service. 

Part-time employees that work when bank holidays usually fall (Mondays and Fridays) 

Overall entitlement will need to be used to cover annual leave and any bank holidays.  

A more significant proportion of total leave entitlement may need to be allocated to cover bank holidays.  BW will make this allocation for you.

You could make up for this by using flexi-leave.

Employees contracted to work part year

In most cases, you will not be able to book annual leave during your working weeks. 

Your paid weeks and working weeks are based on your pro-rata overall entitlement. This includes bank holidays.  

Part-time working with a non-standard week 

We calculate your leave entitlement using your usual working pattern. For example: 

  • Mrs B (Grade 8) has five years' continuous service. Her work pattern rolls over two weeks 
  • week one she works five full days of 7.4 hours (37 hours in total)
  • weeks two she works four full days of 7.4 hours (29.6 hours in total)
  • this equates to working 90 per cent of full time 
  • her annual leave is calculated using her hours in a fortnight (10 days) 
  • she works 66.6 hours in a fortnight
  • 66.6 divided by ten multiplied by 32 equates to 213.12 hours annual leave
  • 66.6 divided by ten multiplied by eight equates to 53.28 hours bank holiday entitlement
  • therefore, overall entitlement is 266.4 hours
  • each day booked off is 7.4 hours

Contact HR if you need additional support.

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