Hi Kimberly
I have worked in a school environment for five years now and prior to this worked in the retail sector where it was common practice to pay any holiday due after maternity leave. On the first maternity leave that I dealt with in school I discussed the payment of holiday due with the then SBM and was told that there was no such thing as paying out holiday pay for support staff that were on term time contracts. To be fair this was an inherited "thinking" from the LA. I don't know if you have access to the Local Government Association website (it is subscription based) but I managed to find an article on there to prove to our SBM that by law any holiday pay due must be paid out (it is also fair to say that in some circumstances the employee can end up owing the school money if too much paid holiday has been taken during the reference time period)

During a recent review of our policies, we now state that all employees (including teachers) may be entitled to have any due holiday paid up. So far the only time that a teacher has been entitled to holiday pay was when the employee didn't return to work after the maternity leave. In all other circumstances it is highly unlikely that teachers would be due any holiday pay.

The calculation can be a bit long but let me know if you would like me to give more details.

In reply to GEORGINA TYLER-COLE:

Thank you for the info - I would be very grateful for any details you have on calculating this.

Re holiday pay in the reference period - SMP is based on earnings, so if OT, back pay or any other payment was made during the reference period this would also increase SMP, so wondering why "holiday pay" would matter? Also, could the counter argument not be (depending on when the reference period is in the school year), that staff have not in fact been paid for what they've worked as salary is paid across 12 months, so their earnings are in fact lower?

TTO working causes me so many headaches!

In reply to Kimberly:

Hi Kimberly
With regard to the SMP being based upon earning during the set period this is to ensure that the employee's 90% SMP paid for the first six weeks is a fair reflection of their average earnings and has no bearing on the holiday pay.
For the calculation please see below.

I have used a working example to help:
Anniversary of date of engagement: 01/09/2016
Maternity Start date: 01/01/2017
Return to work date: 01/06/2017

A Actual Annual Salary : £15,000.00
B Paid Weeks : 43.89
C Working Weeks : 38.00
D Holiday Weeks : 5.89 (B-C)
E FTE Weeks per Year : 52.14
F Actual Wkly pay based upon paid weeks : £341.76 (A / B)
G Averaged Wkly pay paid : £287.69 (A / E)
H Non working weeks paid at the average wkly rate between anniversary of date of engagement and the
start of maternity leave : 2.80
J Non working weeks paid at the average wkly rate between return to work and the next anniversary of
date of engagement : 5.20
K Total holiday weeks taken : 8.00 (H + J)
L Actual holiday pay due for period : £2,012.99 (D * F)
M Actual holiday pay received for period : £2,301.50 (G * K)
N Holiday pay to be recovered / paid : -£288.51(L - M)

If the maternity leave started, for example, on 1st May 2017 and ended on the 31st March 2018 you would have to do two calculations, one covering the period 1 Sept 2016 to 31 August 2017 and one to cover the period 1 September 2017 to 31st March 2018.

Just worth mentioning that we don't pay any holiday pay out until the employee has returned to work and worked the equivalent of the required 12 weeks for the purposes of the occupational maternity pay. This avoids having to recalculate if the employee decides to leave early.

In reply to GEORGINA TYLER-COLE:

Thanks Georgina, but I don't think in this scenario the worker should owe any holiday - they are only receiving holiday pay for 7 months so should be owed for the 5 months on ML. The holiday weeks you are referring to are actually unpaid weeks, however, staff accept a lower weekly wage to receive pay during these periods.

My calculations below are based on your above scenario:

O Salary not including holiday pay (A/BXC) = 12,987.01
P Holiday pay (A-O) = 2,012.99
Q Monthly Salary (O/12) = 1,082.25
R Monthly holiday pay (P/12) = 167.75
S Holiday pay prior to ML (Rx4) = 671
T Holiday pay received after ML (Rx3) = 503.25
U Total holiday pay paid (S+T) = 1,174.25
V Holiday pay owed (P-U) = 838.74