Are employees automatically entitled to a day off for the Queen’s funeral?
Whilst the nation is going through a period of mourning in light of Queen Elizabeth II’s recent death, thoughts turn to her state funeral due to be held on Monday, 19 September 2022 and the question of whether employees are automatically entitled to the bank holiday?
Unfortunately for employees, there is no statutory right to time off for bank/public holidays, but employers can choose to include these days as part of employees’ annual leave entitlement. Therefore, the first port of call in order to determine whether employees are entitled to time off on 19 September 2022 is their contract of employment.
Contract of employment
Holiday entitlement is normally expressed in a contract of employment as the following (with some variations):
- X days’ holiday plus bank holidays; or
- X days’ holiday, which includes bank holidays.
In terms of examples:
“You are entitled to X days’ paid holiday each year. In addition, you are entitled to take bank/public holidays.”
In this situation, as bank holidays are included on top of the employee’s annual leave allowance, and as the contract doesn’t stipulate the exact number they are entitled to, the employee will be contractually entitled to take and be paid for the extra bank holiday on 19 September 2022.
However, the employee’s contract may instead state:
“You are entitled to X days’ holiday during each holiday year. This is inclusive of any of the normal bank/public holidays that you are permitted to take. The business recognises the following bank/public holidays…”
In this situation, as bank holidays form part of the employee’s set holiday entitlement, and because the employer has expressly provided the public holidays in question, the employee won’t have a contractual right to the extra bank holiday on 19 September 2022.
Or,
“You are entitled to X days’ holiday during each holiday year plus the usual bank/public holidays…”
In this situation, as the 19 September 2022 is not usually observed as a bank holiday, then the employee won’t have a contractual right to the extra bank holiday on 19 September 2022.
Options
Even if an employee is not entitled to the extra bank holiday on 19 September 2022, but employers are intending closing in any event, they have the option of requiring employees to use a day of their normal annual leave entitlement to ensure they do not lose out on a day’s pay, although this would need to be actioned swiftly in light of the tight timescales involved.
Alternatively, employers may choose to grant the day as a gesture of goodwill, particularly as the circumstances leading to this bank holiday are unlikely to be a regular occurrence. This is also likely to provide a much-needed morale boost. If so, then employers should also ensure fairness and consistency of treatment, so they would also need to:
- Allow a pro rata amount of paid leave for part timers, so anyone who does not work on a Monday would get a pro rata equivalent to take off at another time of the year (for example for someone who worked 2.5 FTE they would need to be given a half day to take later in the year). The employer will likely need to run a recalculation of public holiday entitlements for all part time employees to ensure fairness (as those who usually work Mondays will be getting a full day off for this).
- If someone has pre-booked annual leave that day employers will need to credit them this annual leave entitlement and replace as a paid public holiday entitlement.
- For those on family related leave, employers will need to take this additional paid leave entitlement into account in the same way as they would for other public holidays that fall within their family leave period, to avoid any argument that they were at a disadvantage compared to employees not on family leave.
