Holiday Rights

[Mr Slappy]

I work in "Social Housing" for the local council and have recently been told, as have my colleagues, that because there is an inspection at the end of October, no-one is allowed any holiday leave. This is half-term! Are they allowed to do this?

[thugulike]

If you look at your contract you will probably find that all leave whether it's annual or flexi has to be taken at the discretion of your manager.  Yes, they can.

[stoo_pid]

Yes. I'm afraid they are allowed to do this.  Unless your contract stipulates otherwise, employers are perfectly entitled to say no to employees taking leave on specific dates.  In fact, if they so wished, they could actually tell you which days you have to take leave - the only legal requirement in such a case is that the period of notice they must give you is twice the period of leave.

[stoo_pid]

Yes, mdoo98, unless your contract specifically stipulates otherwise (e.g. that 'floating days' are yours to take whenever you want) your employer can tell you exactly which days you will take your holiday if they so wish.

The period of notice is how much notice they have to tell you which days to take leave.  In other words, lets say your boss decides to shut the place for 1 week and wants everyone to take their holidays.  Your employer then only needs to give you 4 weeks notice (2 x 2 weeks) that you'll be off for those 2 weeks.

Click here for the boring legal stuff.

[stoo_pid]

doh! that should read:

In other words, lets say your boss decides to shut the place for 1 week and wants everyone to take 1 week's holiday then.  Your employer then only needs to give you 2 week's notice (2 x 1 week) that you'll be off for that week.

[stoo_pid]

Sorry mdoo98, perhaps I'm missing something really obvious but I don't get your point.  If your contract states that you can take your floating days whenever you like (subject to meeting certain criteria) then, like I said, there's no problem.  If it doesn't then your employer is legally entitled to dictate your leave if they so wish.