Any right to time off or extra pay for working on a bank holiday depends on an individual's contract of employment. If not specified within their contract, then an employee won't have an automatic right to paid leave on bank and public holidays. The same rule applies to the public bank holiday to be held on 29th April 2011.
The Working Time Regulations 1998 dictate that employees must receive a minimum of 5.6 weeks paid annual leave, which will equate to 28 days for someone working five days a week. Bank and public holidays can be included within the 28 days and part-time workers will have their entitlement pro-rata. Many contracts of employment will contain a reference to bank or public holidays.
Where an employment contract provides for a certain number of days, for example 20, 'plus bank holidays', then an employee will be entitled to the 20 days, plus the royal wedding bank holiday, plus the usual eight public and bank holidays.
NB: There are eight permanent bank and public holidays in England and Wales, with nine in Scotland and ten in Northern Ireland.
Recent versions of the BWF employee handbook have suggested an annual holiday entitlement of '21 working days plus Public and Bank holidays', so members who have this written into their employee contracts, but do not have the number of Public and Bank Holiday days specified, will be required to pay employees for the bank holiday.
Where an employment contract provides for a certain number of days, for example, 28, 'inclusive of bank holidays', then an employee will take leave on the royal wedding bank holiday in addition to the usual eight bank holidays, but will have only 19 remaining leave days to take. If an employee works on a bank or public holiday, there is no automatic right to an enhanced pay rate unless they have it written in their contract of employment.
Employers should also note that there will also be an extra bank holiday in 2012 to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. As a result of this, the 2012 late May bank holiday will be moved to Monday 4 June 2012 and an additional Jubilee bank holiday will be on Tuesday 5 June 2012.