Following the sad news of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles III has exercised his power under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 and proclaimed an additional Bank Holiday for the state funeral on Monday 19 September 2022. However, are employers obliged to honour the additional day off and pay staff for that day? This all depends on the amount of days you work and your contract of employment.
The Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR 1998) provides a basic right of entitlement to 5.6 weeks of annual leave in each leave year, which is equivalent to twenty-eight days for those who work five days a week, with holidays reduced pro rata for part time workers. This is usually made up of twenty days for annual leave and eight days representing the usual public holidays.
There is no specific right to paid time off on an additional public holiday and whether you are required to work on a bank holiday is simply a matter of contract, or in some areas of work, a necessity.
By way of an example, if your contract states that an employee is entitled to 20 days holiday in addition to public holidays, then as Monday 19 September has been declared a public holiday, your employees are likely to be legally entitled to Monday off paid. However, if your contracts state that an employee is entitled to 28 days holiday inclusive of the 8 public bank holidays or the ‘normal’ bank holidays then it is highly unlikely that employees will be legally entitled to the additional public holiday off paid and it is therefore up to you as an employer to decide whether you are closed on the 19 September and whether or not employees will be paid for that day.
It is always important to check the wording of your contracts and to take advice from our employment team as to whether or not staff are entitled to the day off with pay.
For further information or advice on employment contracts and holiday entitlement, please contact Stacey Cox at [email protected]
