In organisations where the holiday year runs from 1 April until 31 March and the statutory minimum annual leave entitlement is provided to employees, action may be required as the Easter bank holiday dates in 2024 fall across two holiday years. If this applies in your business, take note now to avoid disgruntled employees later in the year.

• In the 2023/24 holiday year there are nine bank holidays (excluding the additional bank holiday in 2023 for the King’s Coronation)
• In the 2024/25 holiday year there will be only seven because the Easter bank holidays in 2025 both fall in April (i.e. the 2025/26 holiday year)

This may be an issue if your holiday entitlement for full time staff is ”20 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays” as individuals’ allowance will total 27 days instead of the 28 days prescribed as the statutory minimum – in others words they would have a one day annual leave shortfall in the 2024/25 holiday year. Something they are unlikely to be happy about!

If this is the case in your organisation, you could choose to:

• increase workers’ annual leave entitlement by one day in 2024/25, so that the entitlement for full time workers is 21 days plus seven bank holidays (pro-rata for part timers)

or

• ask workers to agree to temporary variation to their employment contracts so that, in the current holiday year (2023/24), they will receive 19 days’ annual leave plus nine bank holidays and, in the 2024/25 holiday year, they will receive 21 days plus seven bank holidays (full time entitlements, pro rata for part timers).
  In reality, this means that workers will need to carry forward one day of leave from 2023/24 to 2024/25 and will result in them receiving the same overall annual leave entitlement (28 days) in both holiday years. Please note though that this option will only work though if all workers have at least one day of annual leave remaining that can be carried forward and are in agreement with the proposal.

No action is required by you if :

• your contracts states that annual leave entitlement is 28 days inclusive of all bank holidays (other than to ensure that each worker gets 28 days’ leave entitlement for each year),
• your contract provides more than the statutory minimum annual leave entitlement
  or
• your leave year runs from any dates other than 1 April to 31 March.

If you require help working out the best course of action for your business, or if you are unsure if this applies to your employees, we can help. You can contact us using our contact form or give us a call.  We can provide HR advice on a pay as you go basis.

Once you have decided how to proceed, it will be important to communicate this to your employees now – especially if you are requiring them to ‘carry over’ one of their days from this holiday year. Reminding employees that action is required to avoid them losing holiday days will help!