October 1999
How much holiday can I ask my employer for?
Since 1 October 1998 all UK employees have been entitled to three weeks paid leave a year. From 23 November this goes up to four weeks every year – though only after you have been continuously employed for 13 weeks, so you may need to update your contract to reflect this.
The four weeks (i.e. 20 days for a full-time employee) include all bank holidays (which were incorrectly stated in my article in the June 1999 issue of PN as being in addition to this) but not extra public holidays, such as the one on this year's Millennium Eve, 31 December. This will be additional to the new four weeks statutory entitlement so if you work on this day you should negotiate an extra day's paid leave later in the year.
Part-time nannies will have the same paid holiday entitlement but pro-rata to the number of days they work. For example, if you work three days a week for someone, your entitlement will be for 12 days paid leave, and if you have a second job for two days a week, you will have a further eight days leave paid by your second employer.
If your holiday leave entitlement is counted from a particular date each year, perhaps when you started your current job, and you are not already receiving four weeks paid leave from your employer, your number of days entitlement in the current year from 23 November onwards should be calculated as that proportion of your particular employment year remaining (e.g. three months – or a quarter) multiplied by a year's entitlement (e.g. a quarter of 20 days – or five days) plus any days leave not already taken from your previous (nine months) entitlement.
If you have not had as much as four weeks holiday pay up to now, you might feel awkward about drawing your new entitlement to your employers’ attention. However, your employer will be breaking the law by not allowing you to take your full four weeks entitlement so you are helping them, as well as yourself, by pointing out this new requirement to them.
Your holiday pay entitlement may only be taken during the employment year in which it arises, but can be carried over to the following year if your employers agree – which they are not obliged to do. You are also not entitled to take payment in lieu of any holiday entitlement not taken in an employment year – again unless your employer agrees to this.
For many nannies four weeks holiday a year will be an improvement on their present arrangement. Nannying is a busy and demanding job so your new rights as an employee to extra paid time off should be a valuable and popular benefit!