Royal Wedding - cause for celebration for employees?

Press Releases

By Louise Haward

It is now less than 2 months to the wedding of the year, (no Katie Price isn’t getting married again as far as we know) but the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton on 29 April 2011, but of most interest to employees and employers alike will be the fact that the wedding day has been declared as a bank holiday adding to the 8 existing bank holidays.

For employers the timing of this bank holiday could be described as unfortunate if not disruptive as it is sandwiched between the Easter weekend and the May Day bank holiday resulting in there being only 3 working days between 22 April and 2 May 2011. The cost of the royal wedding will be picked up in part by the taxpayer but there is no such support for small businesses already hit by the recession for this extra bank holiday and the Department of Business Innovation and Skill has estimated the cost to business to be in the region of £2.9billion.

Employees may have celebrated the news with the belief that they will be entitled to an extra paid day off work however employers may be comforted to know that employees do not have the statutory right to take off bank holidays. Whether or not they are entitled to take off bank holidays depends on the terms of their contracts of employment.

Employees with the minimum statutory entitlement to holidays of 28 days who wish to take the extra bank holiday off as paid leave will need to have sufficient holiday entitlement left from that 28 day entitlement to do so and may also need permission from their employer to take the day off depending on their contract terms. In contrast however those employees with contracts entitling them to paid leave on bank holidays in addition to the 28 day entitlement will have to be allowed this extra bank holiday off (or allowed time off in lieu depending on contract terms).

There is no automatic right to extra pay (e.g. time and a half) when an employee works on a bank holiday although the contract of employment may specify an increased pay rate and that rate will also then apply to this extra date.

It would be nice to think that the nation could join in to celebrate the likely future King’s wedding day but not at the expense of small businesses.