Bank holidays and public holidays

Recording the leave on your leave record

Entitlement for bank or public holidays is calculated on a pro-rata basis.

Entitlements and time taken off on each bank holiday must be recorded on your leave record for all employees (full and part time).

Record your leave

If you're a part-time or part year employee

Entitlements for part time or part year employees are pro rata, these should be expressed in hours.

Entitlements for part time or part year employees are allocated on a pro rata basis proportionate to your weekly working hours, for example someone on 15 hours per week has an entitlement of 15/37ths of a standard working day of 7.4 hours, which is 3 hours.

An employee who works a standard week Monday to Friday, 5 days at 3 hours per day gets enough pro rata bank holiday entitlement to cover their bank holiday days off.

The principle outlined above applies in all circumstances, making sure that everyone who works part time gets the correct proportionate entitlement to a full-time person. 

Entitlement to leave for bank holidays is statutory (eight days) and must be given to all employees, regardless of whether they work the days or not.

If you only work 3 days in the week

For example: Monday to Wednesday (5 hours per day), then you will have a shortfall of 2 hours in your entitlement for any bank holiday they take off which falls Monday to Wednesday (their entitlement is 3 hours, their working day is 5 hours). 

You would need to deduct an extra 2 hours from your flexi and/or annual leave entitlement if you need to take the full day off.  

Given that the majority of bank holidays fall on a Monday, you will need to make sure that you keep sufficient flexi and annual leave for this purpose, and manager’s need to make sure appropriate Leave Records are maintained to show this.  Alternatively, and with the line manager’s agreement, you could come in and work the shortfall of hours, or they could move the working days in that week from Monday to Wednesday to Tuesday to Thursday, which means you wouldn’t need to take any leave hours from their annual leave or bank holiday entitlement and would maintain your current credit balance.

When bank holidays falls on a “non-working day”

For example: Thursday or Friday for Monday to Wednesday employees, your leave credit balance would remain the same as you don’t need to use any hours as they are already not at work, and so you can "keep" the entitlement in order to offset the shortfalls on bank holiday Mondays.

If you only work Wednesday to Friday, then generally you are likely to maintain greater credit balances during your leave year in their bank holiday entitlement to those who do regularly work Mondays, as they don’t need to take time off in order to have Mondays off. In these cases, managers need to be flexible around when bank holiday leave entitlement is taken and make sure appropriate records are maintained so that leave balances are properly managed.

If you are required to work on a bank holiday

Where employees are required to work on a bank holiday as part of their normal working week in order to ensure the council maintains essential services, the relevant flat sessional payment will be paid.  Bank holiday leave entitlement will be included in the annual allocation (pro rata for part time).  Where there is a re-designated bank holiday the flat sessional payment will only apply once, ie on the actual day if worked or on the re-designated day if worked instead, but not on both if both are worked.

There is no right to take the day off on the actual date of a bank holiday. We will normally close offices etc on bank holidays, except where there is a need to maintain essential services. Closure of workplaces will be notified at a local level but you may need to consider providing alternative workplaces where employees wish to attend work.

Managers are required to consider requests from employees who wish to re-designate some or all of the bank holidays (for example, for an alternative religious festival) and to make sure appropriate recording and management of such requests.