Mrs K Scott v Hulsteins UK Limited — 2022

Mrs K Scott worked for Hulsteins UK Limited from 1 February 2018 until she resigned with immediate effect on 31 May 2021. Her contract provided for 23 days’ annual leave plus public holidays and said leave could not be carried forward, but the tribunal heard evidence about whether an express written agreement had later allowed 4 days from the 2020 holiday year to be carried into 2021. The tribunal accepted the claimant’s evidence on that issue, relying on her account, the holiday spreadsheet showing a 2021 entitlement of 27 days, supporting witness evidence, and the existence on the respondent’s system of a template carry-over letter. It found the absence of a surviving signed copy did not displace the conclusion that such an agreement had existed.

The tribunal held that the carry-over agreement overrode the contractual no-carry-forward clause for that year. It also rejected the respondent’s approach of adding public holidays into the annual leave calculation and pro-rating them, because the contract gave 23 days in addition to public holidays and the public holidays were taken and paid as they fell. On that basis, the tribunal found that by termination the claimant had accrued 14 days in total: 4 carried over from 2020 and 10 days accrued in the 2021 leave year.

It was not disputed that the claimant had taken 5.5 days of annual leave in 2021, including 4 carried-over days taken before the end of April and 1.5 days from her 2021 entitlement. That left 8.5 days accrued but untaken at termination. Using the claimant’s unchallenged evidence that she worked 6-hour days at £15 per hour, the tribunal calculated the gross holiday pay due as £765. It ordered the respondent to pay that sum gross, with tax and National Insurance to be dealt with by the claimant, and recorded that nothing had yet been paid even for the days the respondent accepted were owing.