Buy more annual leave

Additional Annual Leave Purchase Scheme

The purpose of the annual leave purchase scheme is to provide you with additional flexibility in respect of planned time off work. The scheme provides the opportunity to "buy" up to two working weeks (pro-rata if appropriate) additional annual leave in each leave year, with deductions in pay spread over 12 months.

Additional annual leave should be applied for and taken in the line with the normal annual leave procedures.

There will be no increase in the normal leave “carry forward” provisions and managers and employees must make sure proper planning and management of the taking of the additional annual leave.  If, having purchased additional annual leave, the employee fails to take it before the end of the relevant leave year, the leave will be lost and no reimbursement made.

Application form and HR procedure

Calculating the cost of purchasing more leave

If you would like to calculate the cost of purchasing additional annual leave for yourself, you can use are calculator.

The calculator makes sure that pro rata entitlements are calculated consistently across the Council and in accordance with the requirements of the Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000.

For example:

The ‘Full Time Equivalent’ (FTE) hours of work are 37 per week.

A standard day is 7.4 hours (7 hours, 24 minutes).

The number of weeks actually worked in a year by a full year employee is 52.14 less their leave entitlement, which is dependant on their length of service.

How to buy more annual leave

You must make a request in writing to your line or service manager.

Separate requests must be made for each leave year and applications should be submitted no later than two months before the start of each leave year.

Where a request has been received and approved, you will be notified in writing by your line or service manager and the appropriate change to their pay notified to them by the HR admin, recruitment and payroll services.

If we refuse your request

The council reserves the right to refuse an employee's application to purchase additional annual leave. It may be necessary to refuse an employee's request for operational or technical reasons related to their job. If approval is not given, managers must give reasons and explore other options with the employee.

Deductions from your salary

Any deductions from salary to pay for the additional leave will be made monthly and calculated at the employee’s rate of pay as at the date of the agreement.

If you leave the council

Employees leaving the council will be reimbursed if the salary deductions on leaving amount to more than the leave taken.  

If on leaving, the value of the salary deductions made during the relevant leave year are less than the value of the leave taken, the council reserves the right (in line with contractual provision) to require repayment and will be entitled to deduct the outstanding amount from salary or other payment due to the employee.  

If the final salary is not sufficient to allow for the whole of such a deduction, the employee will be required to repay the outstanding amount within one month of the date of termination of their employment.