Consultation to address holiday pay disparity
The case of a music teacher and her annual leave accrual resulted in concern that part-year workers might be entitled to more holiday pay than those working regular hours. A new consultation seeks to gather views on how this could be corrected.
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I genuinely have no idea how, mathematically, one can calculate this entitlement in the real world. My software (new, education specific) certainly cannot do this.
The legislation seems to assume I have an (easily accessible) library of up to 104 weekly timesheets per person affected.
The staff this affects (music teachers etc) will have submitted various timesheets - but, typically, they would be one sheet per month.
They cannot get rid of this hateful and unworkable legislation soon enough.
How can it be that someone working 20 hours one week and none the next gets twice as much holiday as someone working 10 hours every week?
Arguably worse even than the current state of affairs is the unanswered question ... why has it taken the government (specifically BEIS) so long to take any action - if holding a consultation can be deemed as taking an action?
The Harpur Trust vs Brazel case initially went to ET nearly 8 years ago and the claimant won at the subsequent EAT quite some time ago ... so the more recent "unanimous Supreme Court" findings are not exactly a surprise bolt out of the blue.
And given that the result is obviously inequitable in practice (which people like me and many others have been pointing out ever since the EAT), it might have seemed sensible to hold a consultation (or even make alternative proposals) a few years ago.
But much easier to do nothing (for the government if not for employers - who of course don't have a vote)!
why has it taken the government (specifically BEIS) so long to take any action?
The Harpur Trust vs Brazel case initially went to ET nearly 8 years ago and the claimant won at the subsequent EAT quite some time ago ... so the more recent "unanimous Supreme Court" findings are not exactly a surprise bolt out of the blue.
But much easier to do nothing
The cynic in me says that it was something else to blame Europe for. Fixing it would have tacitly admitted that it was crap implementation, not EU directives, that were to blame.
"Much easier to do nothing"
Absolutely - the standard Civil Service response to any problem.
At least HMG are now doing SOMETHING. As others have said, this law is a [***] but it is a toss up whether Judges will try to change it (as they do when it suits them) or as in this case, codify the stupidity into a precedent
There will be a lot more cases like this over varying parts of our legislation. We do need a complete overhaul of our entire working practises.
The fact that people who look after our health and welfare have to go on strike to get recognised is appalling. Surely we have enough brains in this country to set something up so this never happens and it's not all to do with money.
Successive Governments have trundled from one crisis to another, patching things up, going for increased taxation instead of revamping the framework of our society. Now we are out of the EU we have a fantastic opportunity to do just that. Will it happen? We haven't got a politician with the necessary to do it.
A lot of the problems these days stem from the basic lack of intelligence displayed by the judiciary. It can be seen in many areas where judgements are handed down without any contemplation of the likely consequences. The judiciary are supposed to be impartial but it is clear that a number are not preferring to appear to be woke than sensible.
If they come to a point where a judgement is clearly ridiculous the least they could do is say to HMG "This is stupid - change the legislation" but I suspect the presence of a head in an awkward place probably makes it difficult to think.
I was once management accountant for a call-centre operation. The call-centre was staffed from 7am to 9pm and relied on a lot of staff who worked varying length shifts, and many were part-time. This suited them as they could work around family commitments. Holiday entitlements were complicated by the fact that different individuals would have different entitlements depending on length of service. The way we accommodated that for part-time and flexible hours workers was to effectively work out an hourly equivalent for holiday entitlement based on hours worked in the vacation year. Where the calculation indicated a part shift for vacation it was rounded up to the full shift or half day for that employee. It was simple and fair. Was it the correct way in law? I have no idea, but no-one ever complained.
Why can't politicians and civil servants [***] out of regulating such matters? Companies should be allowed to determine their own ways of handling such things. The only mandate should be that the method chosen is fair and equitable, and communicated to employees in an understandable way.