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Published on 8 March 2023

Calculating holiday entitlement for part-year and irregular hours workers

LITRG have responded to a BEIS consultation on proposals to pro-rata holiday entitlement for part-year and irregular hours workers based on the annual hours they work.

LITRG Response: Calculating holiday entitlement for part-year and irregular hours workers. image of a woman looking through timesheets with a calculator.

The consultation follows the recent Supreme Court judgment in Harpur Trust v Brazel, that the 12.07% holiday entitlement calculation method is incorrect for part-year workers on permanent contracts.

The proposals would essentially reverse the Brazel judgment and effectively formalise the 12.07% method that many employers already use and workers understand and know well. 

The consultation is seeking to understand the implications of the Brazel judgment, as well as the proposals, on agency workers who work through umbrella companies. They may sometimes be ‘part-year workers’, as they typically have an overarching contract and thus, a continuity of contract between assignments.

Although we are not employment law experts we have offered some broad comments in our response, as we think that we can provide valuable insight due to our extensive work in the area of agency workers and umbrella companies.

In particular we say that while we think that the impact of Brazel on umbrella workers is probably quite limited, the proposals should help bring clarity, certainty and consistency to the labour market and improve the positions of low paid workers (umbrella company or otherwise)-  and to this extent, they are to be welcomed.

The consultation can be found here

LITRG’s response can be found here.

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