Paying Bank Holidays?

[Guest]

Hi all, Next term we not only have the 3 bank holidays but we are also a polling station so will have to close that day too.

 

Our LEA will continue to pay us funding on these days, and it's highly unlikely that our parents will expect us to open any extra days at the end of term (they won't even realise it's an option I suspect!). We will lose about £200 in fees in total from unfunded children.

 

What I'm wondering is whether we should/have to pay staff for these bank holidays? They already get the statutory entitlment, which is 5.6 weeks (this can include bank holidays). So, if we do pay them, this would be an additional payment on top of their holiday pay. Normally, if they are not in, they don't get paid.

 

Also, if we do pay, could our leader ask that they do some kind of task (maybe reading up on stuff?) at home, or is that not allowed.

 

What do other settings do? We are voluntary run charity so money is always tight. However, I would if possible like to recognise the great job done by staff.

[Guest]

Hi Suzie

 

We had to make this decision ourselves recently.

 

We don't normally pay bank holidays.

 

What we have decided to do is to pay the staff and ask them to do some work from home (e.g. keyworker notes).

 

The factors we considered were:

1. The majority of our funding was in place for those days.
   
2. We normally allow staff one work from home session per half term to help with keyworker notes, but staff changes have prevented that for the last term.
   
3. Staff often put in extra hours for free, and this is an almost cost free "thank you".
   

We have a large total (not per session) number of children compared to staff because many of our 2 year olds only do 2 sessions per week. This results in each staff member having quite a few key children.

 

Hope that helps.

 

George

 

PS Good job I hit preview post, my "" gets turned into

[Inge]

We never paid for the Bank Holidays, it was part of the holiday entitlement, which we too paid for the full minimum, which was generous as we could have opted to work out the part time entitlement.. Think ours stated it included any bank holidays so no further payment would be made for them.

 

if you pay I wonder how fair it is to ask them to actually work on a bank holiday when rest of family are at home and not working...

 

 

Polling day is probably different so we would probably pay and ask for work to be done at home but as we are not a polling station it never arises.

[Guest]

Hi

Like Inge school club hol;idays include all the bank holidays as we close on those days. So staff get paid but it is taken off their holiday entitlement.

[HappyMaz]

Our contracts have always stated that bank holidays and other days when we are closed (for polling etc) are not paid. We get the standard 5.8 weeks' holiday pay, although this is done on a straight 5.8 x a week's pay rather than being calculated pro-rata. I'm not clever enough to make those kinds of calculations!

[Cait]

I pay 6 weeks pro rata holiday anyway - just to be on the safe side! (it's also easier to work out)

[Guest]

this may sound silly but if staff are paid for 38 weeks of year (term time) and the bank holidays are included in those 38 weeks then surely they already get paid for those bank holiday days anyway??? Am i making sense or am I having a DUH moment?? lol

[HappyMaz]

this may sound silly but if staff are paid for 38 weeks of year (term time) and the bank holidays are included in those 38 weeks then surely they already get paid for those bank holiday days anyway???

I guess that depends on whether they usually work on Mondays - our staff are paid for the sessions they work, not a flat rate for a week's work, if that makes sense.