no attendance For the v Mr M Ramsbottom (consultant) — 2025

The Claimant, a security agent employed from 9 May 2023, brought a claim under Regulation 13 of the Working Time Regulations 1998 for an entitlement to carry forward unused annual leave from the 2023 leave year into 2024. He did not attend the hearing, but the tribunal proceeded in his absence because the complaint was clear, there were few factual disputes, and it had sufficient material to determine the case fairly. The tribunal also noted that the claim was in time and that the relevant date for the complaint was likely later than 31 December 2023 because the parties were still discussing carry forward into April 2024 and beyond.

On the facts, the Claimant had accrued 118 hours of annual leave by 31 December 2023 and had taken none. His contract said unused leave would normally be lost, while the staff handbook allowed exceptional carry forward with managerial approval. The tribunal accepted that the Respondent encouraged annual leave generally, but found that the Claimant had been suspended from October 2023 following a security breach and that, during the suspension, he was prevented from taking annual leave by the Respondent’s policy. The tribunal found he intended to use at least some leave between October and December 2023 and had not voluntarily forfeited it. It held that, in the circumstances of a neutral suspension pending disciplinary investigation, the Respondent had failed to give him a reasonable opportunity to take all of his annual leave.

The tribunal concluded that the Claimant was entitled to carry forward the leave he had not been afforded a reasonable opportunity to take under Regulation 13(17). On compensation, it applied a just and equitable approach under Regulation 30(4) and assessed the loss by reference to the proportion of the leave year during which he was suspended. It calculated the relevant period as 1 October to 11 December 2023, being 71 days out of a 236-day leave year, which produced 35.5 hours of leave to carry forward. At the Claimant’s hourly rate of £11.95, the tribunal awarded £424.23 in compensation.