Yes, part-timers who never work Mondays are still entitled to the bank holidays. Here's the quick, clear version before your September restart.
If August has arrived and you have quietly opened three tabs on gov.uk to work out who is entitled to what for the bank holiday on the 25th, this one is for you.
Annual leave is the most-Googled bit of UK HR every summer, and one of the most-misunderstood by SME owners, part-timers, and the entire office WhatsApp group. Which is a shame, because the rules are actually quite tidy once you stop panicking.
Let me talk you through it.
The rule everyone quietly forgets
Under the Working Time Regulations 1998, every worker in the UK gets a minimum of 5.6 weeks of paid leave a year. For a full-timer on a five-day week, that comes to 28 days.
The bit that trips everyone up is what those 28 days include.
Bank holidays are not automatically on top. You are welcome to give them on top if you want to be generous, but the legal minimum is 5.6 weeks total, bank holidays included. There is no legal right in the UK to have any specific bank holiday off, and "we just always have done it that way" is a genuinely poor answer at tribunal.
The part-timer problem
August is the month this really bites.
The summer bank holiday in England, Wales and Northern Ireland falls on the last Monday of August. Which is fine, until you notice that your part-timer works Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and has never had a single Monday off in her life.
If you are giving your full-timers bank holidays on top of their 20 days, and you are not doing anything equivalent for her, she is being treated less favourably than a full-timer. That is a breach of the Part-Time Workers Regulations 2000, and it is one of the most common tribunal risks we see in the summer.
The fix is to convert her entitlement to hours and give her the pro-rata equivalent of the bank holidays to take whenever she likes.
The pro-rata calculation, quickly
Take the number of days your part-timer works per week, divide by 5, multiply by 5.6.
A three-day-a-week employee gets 16.8 days a year. A four-day-a-week employee gets 22.4 days. Always round up in the employee's favour. Rounding down breaches the Working Time Regulations, and nobody wants that letter.
For irregular hours workers, use the 12.07% accrual rate on hours actually worked (reinstated by the Working Time (Amendment) Regulations 2023).
The four things UK SMEs get wrong in August
Assuming bank holidays are on top of statutory leave. They are not, unless your contract says so.
Forgetting to pro-rata bank holidays for part-timers. Especially the ones who never work Mondays.
Refusing leave with no real reason. You need a genuine business reason and proper notice.
Not planning for carry-over. The statutory 4 weeks generally cannot carry into next year. The extra 1.6 weeks can, if your contract allows.
One last thing
Annual leave is boring right up until it is expensive. A few careful hours now, sorting out your holiday policy for the September restart, will save you a difficult conversation in October, and possibly a solicitor's letter in January. Book a consultation with us today.
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