This month sees the minimum statutory holiday entitlement rise from twenty days to twenty four.

The change is part of the Government’s drive to ensure that all staff are entitled to paid time off for Bank Holidays.

Many employers do not realise that, until this month’s change, there was no obligation to pay staff for Bank Holidays which normally represent eight days annually. However, this is being changed incrementally, with four of the eight normal Bank Holidays becoming an entitlement in terms of paid time off from this month, while the other four will be phased in later.

In my experience most employers already offer a generous holiday entitlement for staff compared to the legal minimum as most contracts of employment that I see allow workers the opportunity to receive payment for Bank Holidays.

For the small number of employers that do not allow paid Bank Holidays, and only provide the minimum of twenty days holiday per year, they will be breaking the law if they have not increased the contractual entitlement to paid holidays to twenty four days from this month.

On a separate note employers should be mindful of the fact that the Inland Revenue is increasing its activity in terms of enforcing the national minimum wage.

A number of employers have been caught out on Inland Revenue inspections in relation to this matter and are now facing the prospect of having to find cash to finance large sums of back pay which have accumulated for employees who have previously received less than the national minimum wage.

Employers should keep an eye on average working time compared to overall pay for a working week. This is especially important when there are periods of time that have not been covered by pay, such as travel between working sites, which of course should be paid. This will affect the working week for the purposes of calculating minimum wage.