Claimant v M Ranger — 2021

The tribunal found that the claimant, who worked 20 hours per week as a part-time assistant, was employed from 1 May 2017 until she resigned on 31 July 2019. The claim concerned holiday entitlement accrued in the 2018 leave year and whether she was entitled to take it, carry it forward into 2019, or receive payment instead. The tribunal recorded that the claimant had taken no annual leave in 2018 and had accrued 28 days leave by 31 December 2018, but that none of that leave was carried over and she received no payment for it at that time.

The respondent’s leave policy required written applications, set a 25th day of the preceding month deadline, limited one member of staff to leave at a time, and stated that unused leave would be lost. The claimant signed the policy on 30 May 2017. The tribunal found that the respondent kept records of refused leave requests, but had no record of refusing any leave application from the claimant. It accepted the respondent’s evidence that the claimant neither applied for nor was refused leave in 2018, including over the Christmas period, and noted that the claimant’s evidence that she had been refused leave in June 2018 was unsupported.

Applying regulations 13 and 13A of the Working Time Regulations 1998, the tribunal held that the claimant was entitled to 28 days’ annual leave in total, made up of 20 days’ basic leave and 8 days’ additional leave. It found there was no regulation 13A(7) agreement allowing carry-over of additional leave, and that regulation 13(9)(a) prevented carry-over of basic leave from one leave year to the next. The tribunal also held that payment in lieu did not arise on the facts found.

On those findings the tribunal held that the claim was not well founded and dismissed it. It also noted that the claimant’s final payment in July 2019 included payment for holiday entitlement accrued but not taken during the 2019 leave year, but that did not alter the dismissal of the claim about 2018 leave.