Annual leave Civil Service circular 08/2023

My understanding is that the statutory days are the 20 days you get under the working time act. Anything over that is non-statutory.

I had never made it out of year one before covid, not taking as much leave as possible never crossed my mind!

Well that screws me up. I had 35 days going into this year. I've still 25 left.

I travel abroad and being able to carry over suite me .

I was ironically disadvantaged by PeoplePoint going "Ah, Covid, we've decided this year doesn't count in the three-year cycle." For me, that meant instead of being in year 1 last year, I was still only in year 3, and couldn't carry leave into this year. And this year, I want lots of time off because I'm planning a long trip in September/October.

I'll have to have a good read of the circular.

It is disgraceful that there's been nothing about this from Fórsa or the AHCPS. I hate to say it, but it seems the only point in being in a union these days is to get a discount on insurance, or if you become the victim of bullying/harassment/unfair dismissal and need individual representation. For "ordinary" negotiations on pay and conditions, they've turned into quiet little sheep!

It's amazing (and highly aggravating) the lack of consistency between depts/offices even though all HR depts are supposed to be implementing the same circulars!

Disgraceful that the unions haven't said a word about this, did they raise any objections at all? Certain people will be highly disadvantaged over this and I thought we were supposed to be moving towards greater flexibility in the workplace not less!

PER seem determined to chip away at T&Cs bit by bit, just because they can.

Yeah, agreed. I'm going to get in touch with my branch/head office and see what the story is.

My understanding is that after the transition period, you can only carry leave into the next year. Under the old rules, you could carry leave over from Year 1 into Year 2, and from Year 2 into Year 3 - including some of the leave from Year 1. (And you were very much limited as to what you could carry over from Year 3 to Year 1).

The effect of the rule change means that I will no longer be able to do what I did a few years ago, i.e., "save up" leave over 2 years to be able to take six weeks off, to go on a long-haul holiday and still have time off at Christmas and a few other days here and there for emergencies, etc.

It's not something that everyone would use, sure. Those of us who have family on the opposite side of the world absolutely did use it. And that flexibility is being removed for no real reason - other than PeoplePoint/NSSO's leave system will no longer have to do the calculations in December/January and March/April, depending on when the leave year ended.

I would rarely want to take 6 weeks off across Jan/Feb. and shorter working year means you're not paid for some of those weeks. I mean, it's an option, yes, but ultimately some people can't afford that and it's a reduction in flexibility.

Also, there has always been statutory leave. 20 days since the 1997 act

and we are all supposed to use that other than in exceptional circumstances. and any statutory leave carried over had to be used by September of the next year. However this was not always enforced.

yes

again unless there are more exceptional circumstances but I think HR would be monitoring such

Regardless of the issue itself, echo somebody else here who sad the lack of comms from the union on this has been ridiculous

A CO would always have had to use 20 days per annum though - the stat min - for health & safety / working time reg purposes.