David Howard Direct Payments blog

Keep on Top of Your PA’s Holiday

Written by admin | Feb 21, 2023 12:04:02 PM

Keep on Top of Your PA’s Holiday

It is the time of year when it would be advisable to check that your PA’s have not overtaken or undertaken their holiday for the holiday year April 2022 to March 2023.

If they have overtaken or undertaken holiday, then you will need to discuss with your employees or your Funding Body what the best course of action is going forward. For example, your employee may have to have overtaken holiday deducted from their wages or  if they have undertaken their holiday, then they will need to figure out a time to use their remaining holiday before the end of March.

If your PA works irregular hours i.e., you submit a timesheet every month then their Holiday Pay accrual will be shown on the bottom of their payslip, under HP Accrual to Date. If the figure is a negative then this will show the amount in pay that they have overtaken their holiday by, if the figure is not negative then this will show the amount in money they have left to take for the year up to the end of March 2023.

You will need to take the HP Accrual to Date figure and divide it by the employee’s rate of pay to figure out how many hours of holiday are left/overtaken.  

HP Accrual to Date / Rate of Pay = Hours of Holiday Left/Overtaken

If your employee has an HP Accrual to Date figure of -£60.00 and they are paid £10 per hour, then this means they have overtaken their holiday by 6 hours.

If the figure is £100.00 and your employee is paid £10 per hour, then this means they have 10 hours of holiday left to take before the end of the holiday year.

For staff that work sporadically throughout the year you will need to work out the annual leave based on the hours they worked on the weeks they provide you with care and work out an average weeks pay. This figure should then be times by 5.6 weeks to get the holiday due. This method needs to be used due to a recent ruling Harpur Trust V Brazel

For more information on the ruling on holiday entitlement, or if you need employment advice please use the links below:

Harpur Trust (Appellants) v Brazel (Respondent) – The Supreme Court

ILG Support | Employment advice and legal support tailored around the specific needs of individual employers of Personal Assistants.

Should you have a holiday agreement within your contracts of employment you may be able to use an alternative method – so please contact your Insurance provider for details of the correct contracts to use for your ‘as and when’ workers.

If your PA works regular hours i.e., you do not submit hours every month, then your PA is due 5.6 weeks holiday per year and you can calculate this by:

For example, if your employee works 10 hours per week the calculation would be:

10hrs X 5.6 weeks = 56 holiday hours per year

Please remember that it is the responsibility of the employer to manage their employees’ holiday time and to ensure that it is being taken appropriately.

If you would like us to work out the holiday entitlement, we will charge £10+VAT per calculation and the request must come from the employer in writing.