Is your holiday year April to March?

Introduction

Many businesses have the holiday year of 1^st April to 31^st March, and as the new holiday year is approaching, they will need to be aware of how the bank holidays will fall in 2023/24.

You may already be aware that there is an additional bank holiday falling on Monday 8^th May 2023 for the coronation of King Charles III. In addition to this, in 2024, the Good Friday bank holiday will fall on 29^th March 2024. This means that in the 2023/24 holiday year there will be 10 bank holidays in total rather than the usual 8. How should you manage this?

Background

Firstly, whether you give the additional bank holiday for the King’s coronation as extra holiday or whether you deduct it from normal annual leave entitlements should be detailed within your organisation’s contracts of employment and/or holiday policy. If not, as employees have no automatic entitlement to bank holidays, it will be at your discretion as to what you decide to do. You may recall that there were additional bank holidays in 2022 for the Platinum Jubilee and the Queen’s funeral, so when considering how to manage the bank holiday on 8^th May, you may wish to apply the same policy as you did before.

There will be a total of 10 bank holidays in 2023/24 and 7 bank holidays in 2024/25 (as far as we are aware at this stage!) Therefore, if you are gifting the 8^th May as additional holiday, where someone works 5 days per week, you will need to increase their 2023/24 holiday entitlement by 1 day. If the bank holiday on 8^th May is being deducted from normal annual leave entitlement, then you will not need to increase employees’ annual holiday entitlement.

For example, if your normal holiday entitlement is 5.6 weeks (20 days + 8 bank holidays for someone who works 5 days per week):

How the bank holidays will fall in 2023/24

Whilst the employee receives less disposable holiday to request in 2023/24, you will see that they will receive more in 2024/25, and their total holiday entitlement (including bank holidays) is correct.

As the statutory minimum annual holiday entitlement is 5.6 weeks (which can include bank holidays), you cannot allow a holiday entitlement of below this amount (e.g., you cannot reduce the 2024/25 entitlement to 5.4 weeks because you’ve given an extra day’s holiday in 2023/24 due to when Good Friday falls).

Holiday entitlements will need to be pro-rata’d for part-timers, and you should apply the same policy to all staff, whether full- or part-time, e.g. for someone who works 3 days per week:

*Bank holidays are only deducted from the part-timer’s entitlement where they fall on a normal working day and are not worked.

Of course, if staff work on a bank holiday, then a day’s holiday is not deducted, and they will have the holiday to request at their disposal.

However, you manage annual leave entitlements and this situation, we would strongly recommend that you clearly communicate your policy to your employees and ensure that the policy is applied fairly and consistently.

Fiona Haworth

You can contact Fiona on [email protected].

If you feel that you need guidance or advice on this matter, please call Practical HR on 01702 216573 or email Fiona on the above.