increase to 4 week annual holiday

Effective from 1 April 2007 the minimum annual holiday entitlement prescribed by the Holidays Act 2003 increased from three to four weeks. But employees do not immediately become entitled to an additional week of holiday. Employees become eligible for their extra week's holiday on their first anniversary date (the date when they started their job) after 1 April 2007. However if an employee leaves their job before their next anniversary date they will be entitled to holiday pay of 8% (rather than 6%) of their gross earnings since their last anniversary date.

What about employees already receiving four weeks' annual holidays – will they automatically get five weeks of holiday? No - it will depend on whether their employment agreement makes it clear that their entitlement increases. For example, the Employment Court has confirmed that Stagecoach employees are not entitled to 5 weeks of annual holiday as a result of the increase of the statutory minimum to 4 weeks from 1 April 2007. Unions representing employees argued that a clause entitling employees to an additional week of holiday after a qualifying period of service meant that 5 weeks of leave would be due after 1 April 2007. The applicable collective agreement stated that in addition to 3 weeks of annual holiday provided by the Holidays Act 1981 employees would be entitled to a further holiday of one week, making a total of four weeks leave per year. The Employment Court ruled that the parties had agreed that the total of annual leave would be four weeks which in effect would render the service based entitlement to an additional week of holiday obsolete after 1 April 2007 because the statutory minimum would meet their stated goal.

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