Does your school or college know how to comply with the new holiday pay rules?

You probably know that the government has made some significant changes to the Working Time Regulations. These were designed to simplify the law relating to holiday accrual and pay, but that's not what they do.

Instead, the new regulations create whole new areas of uncertainty which employers will have to grapple with. 

Some of these rules are already in force, others are being phased in from April 2024.  

The education sector has spent months wrestling with the complexities of term-time only contracts following the Supreme Court's decision in Brazel v Harpur Trust which decided that employers had to give staff at least 5.6 weeks holiday even though they were only required, and paid, to work for around 39 weeks a year. The new regulations will allow schools and colleges to pro-rate holiday for this group of workers but only if they meet the statutory definition. And that's where the problems start.  

The guidance which accompanies these new rules indicates that term-time staff whose annual salary is divided by 12 and paid in equal monthly instalments won't meet the new definition. If that's correct, it means that they must still receive 5.6 weeks holiday. 

It gets worse. Liability for underpayments now carries over from one leave year to the next and only disappears once shortfalls have been paid. That's much more onerous than the rules which previously applied.

The regulations also introduce new rules about rolling up holiday pay, carrying over holiday and explain what has to be included in holiday pay.

We've spent the last few weeks getting to grips with the regulations and have designed a product that explains the rules in a straightforward way and tells schools and colleges what they must do to comply.

For a fixed-fee of £1500 plus VAT, one of our expert lawyers will:

• Schedule a call with you find out how you are currently calculating holiday and which groups of workers will be impacted by these changes
• Review the holiday pay clauses for those workers 
• Send you a bespoke report which analyses whether your workers qualify for the new rules on accrual and pay (this will include looking at your term-time contracts and casual hours contracts). We'll also consider any other areas where your approach doesn't comply with the law. We'll provide pragmatic, risk-based advice in the form of a RAG report and help you to decide what approach to take where the law is unclear 
• Amend your contracts of employment to comply with the new regulations 
• If you've underpaid staff, advise you about the risks of any back-dated claims and how you can mitigate these
• Plus, you'll get a comprehensive guidance note (which runs to 18 pages) which explains the new rules, includes FAQs, example pay calculations and flowcharts. 

This is outstanding value for money. Please contact Jenny Arrowsmith or Gordon Rodham if you want to find out more about how we can help you or you'd like to buy the package.

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