22-06-2007
In January 2007, the Department of Trade and Industry published a detailed consultation document on the Government's proposals to increase the annual statutory leave entitlement, as set out in the Working Time Regulations, from 4 weeks to 5.6 weeks – effectively an additional 8 days for a five-day worker.
The results of that consultation have now been published together with a small number of changes to the initial proposals. The Parliamentary procedures are expected to be completed by July, allowing the first phase of the new entitlements to take effect from 1 October 2007.
There are three key changes to the January 2007 proposals:
The new provisions will apply to all workers covered by the Working Time Regulations, including agency workers, in England, Scotland and Wales. They will also apply to workers with their own equivalent working time provisions. The proposals are that the current four weeks' annual leave entitlement will be supplemented by an additional leave period of 1.6 weeks, introduced in two stages, namely
The resulting 5.6 weeks will be subject to an absolute maximum of 28 days. This gives five-day workers an entitlement to 28 days paid leave in a year but limits the number of days leave for six-day workers to their current 24 days, plus an additional four days only.
These are statutory minimum entitlements and do not prevent employers from providing greater contractual entitlement, as many already do. As all paid days of holiday count towards the statutory entitlement, including paid bank holidays, many employers are already providing at least 28 days paid holiday to their five-day workers – the minimum entitlement from April 2009.