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Maternity leave and using accrued holiday

Beth

Hi everyone,

I wonder if anyone can help. I have an employee who is currently on maternity leave in her 'additional maternity leave' period. She would like to use her accrued holiday now. At my company, our policy states that holiday entitlement accrued during maternity leave must be used before the employee is due back. It cannot be used to extend the maternity leave but can be used to shorten it by using at the end of maternity leave i.e. the last 13 weeks.

My query is the employee permitted by law to take her holiday now at roughly the 27-31 week mark, and what implication would that have for her SMP? 

Thanks

Beth

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  • Hello everyone,

    Thank you for your thoughts. Very useful. I am just starting out in the field and so the thoughts provided will be very useful to talk through with my superiors. I believe our policy has been in place for several years and until the last year there hadn't been any maternity so it seems not to have come up until now.
    Thanks again
    Beth
  • in reply to Beth
    Beth

    I would love to hear from you about how you resolved this issue especially in light of what Keith said about it being potentially unlawful as it is shortening statutory leave entitlement.

    Vicky
  • in reply to Victoria Kavanagh
    Vicky I am with you on this. I have worked with so many women who would prefer to take all or part of their accrued holiday entitlement in the form of pay during the unpaid AML period, so that they have additional cash coming into the house when it is needed most, and also they want to come back to work as anticipated at the end of the 52 weeks. I really do think the law on requiring female employees to take leave before maternity leave starts or after it finishes (i.e. after 52 weeks) is not doing women any favours when it comes to helping them re-join the workforce.
  • in reply to June Margaret Isherwood
    Some (not I, I hasten to add) might regard the right to at least statutory minimum holiday accrual during maternity leave as a bit of legal artifice in the first place and turning it into the right to get paid it all in lieu as driving a coach and horses through the WTD / WTR that created the artifice in the first place - sort of needlessly compounding legal largesse.
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  • in reply to June Margaret Isherwood
    Some (not I, I hasten to add) might regard the right to at least statutory minimum holiday accrual during maternity leave as a bit of legal artifice in the first place and turning it into the right to get paid it all in lieu as driving a coach and horses through the WTD / WTR that created the artifice in the first place - sort of needlessly compounding legal largesse.
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