Annual leave year commences on your anniversary start date. For example, for someone appointed on 25 May, the leave year runs from 25 May each year to 24 May the following year.  

Entitlements

• Annual leave entitlement days per full leave year are shown in the table below.
• These are expressed in hours for all staff.
• One day is equivalent to 7.4 hours or 7 hours and 24 minutes.

Leave entitlement for full time employees (37 hours)

Length of continuous service	Days	Decimalised Hours
More than 1 year but less than 5 years	24	177.6
More than 5 years but less than 10 years	29	214.6
More than 10 years	32	236.8

Employees appointed on or after 1 April 2021 will receive the additional leave entitlement on the anniversary of their appointment on completion of 5/10 years’ service.

All leave entitlement will be expressed in hours. One day is equivalent to 7.4 hours (7 hours and 24 minutes). Leave may only be booked off in full or half days, and the equivalent amount of hours will be deducted from the total.

That is either 7.4 hours or 3.7 hours (3 hrs 42 minutes) for full-timers working a standard working week, and will be calculated by the system for part-timers and those on a non-standard working week.

Previous service

Previous service with other local authorities will count for leave annual entitlement, subject to the break in service rule (Green Book/The Redundancy Payments/Continuity of Employment in Local Government) (Modification Order 1999).

Irregular hours or days for full-time employees

Staff who work irregular hours, days or shifts, or who work a non-standard working week, will receive the appropriate full time entitlement, however each working day will be based on their agreed hours

For example,

• 37 hrs over 4 days = 9 hrs 15 mins per day (9.25 hrs) – each day booked for annual leave will use this figure
• 37 hrs with different agreed hours each day (9, 9, 9, 3.5, 6.5) - each day booked for annual leave will use the agreed hours for that working day

Irregular hours or days for part-time employees

Staff who work part-time will receive a pro rata proportion of the appropriate full-time leave entitlement.

The calculation is: Number of hours worked per week, divided by 5 days, multiplied by full-time annual leave entitlement (for example, 24, 29 or 32 days, depending on length of service) = number of hours’ annual leave to be taken per year.

For example:

• an employee with 5 years’ service, working 30 hours Tuesday to Friday (7.5 hrs per day) = 30 / 5 * 29 = 174 hours plus a pro rata calculation for Bank Holidays.

 A pro rata Bank Holiday entitlement will be automatically calculated.

The calculation is: Number of bank holidays in the year divided by 5 days multiplied by part-time hours worked minus total hours of bank holidays which fall on the employee’s working days.

Credit calculation:

For example, an employee with 5 years’ service, working 30 hrs Tues – Fri i.e. not working a Mon = 9. Bank Holidays / 5 * 30 hrs per week = 54 hours, minus 5 non-Monday Bank Holidays (37.5 hrs) - Giving a Bank Holiday credit of 16.5 hrs (54 – 37.5) to be added to the annual leave calculation.

Debit calculation:

For example, an employee with 5 years’ service, working 30 hrs Mon – Fri i.e. not working a Wed = 9. Bank Holidays / 5 * 30 hrs per week = 54 hours, minus total bank holiday taken (67.5 hrs) – Giving a Bank Holiday debit of -13.5 hrs (54 – 67.5) to be debited from the annual leave calculation (please see example below).

Carry over

Employees may carry over an entitlement of plus or minus five days (37 hours) into the next leave year, this will be pro rata for part-time employees (equivalent to one of their working weeks).

Authorisation to carry over annual leave entitlement in excess of five days (37 hrs or pro rata for part-time employees), in exceptional circumstances, is delegated to the Head of Service after seeking advice from HR.

Long service award

For employees who opt for the additional long service leave at 20, 30 and 40 years:

 20 / 30 / 40 years long service leave (2 weeks pro rata for part-time staff) is a one-off entitlement to be taken within 12 months of the anniversary of the employee’s start date with WDC

Annual leave and sickness

Should an employee be on holiday and fall sick during leave, in accordance with the Attendance Management Policy they can claim the leave back, but the following rules apply:

• They must produce a doctor’s certificate
• They cannot self-certify
• They can only claim back leave from the date of the GP note

Therefore, if they are on leave from Monday to Friday and fall sick on the Monday but don’t get to see the doctor until the Wednesday they can only claim back Wed, Thurs, Friday.

Separate rules apply where employees are unable to take their annual leave within the current leave year due to long term absence - only statutory annual leave will be carried over to the new leave year. Employees can also use their annual leave whilst on long term sick.  Please refer to the “Long Term Sickness and Ill Health Capability Policy” on the Intranet for further information.

Procedure

• All leave should be requested and authorised via the employee self-serve system. Carry over is also inputted by the manager annually via self-serve.
• Managers should ensure that staff are aware of this procedure and that staff are having their annual entitlement and taking it regularly throughout the leave year.

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