Sickness Absence and Holiday Pay

Thanks to Rad Kohanzad of Serjeants’ Inn Chambers for preparing this case summary

Can additional annual leave be carried forward in the absence of an agreement between the parties?

The EAT in Sood Enterprises v Healy said that it cannot.

Mr Healy was off work sick for a year and a half when he resigned. The EAT held that unlike 'ordinary' annual leave, provided for by Regulation 13 Working Time Regulations 1998, additional annual leave, provided for by Regulations 13A Working Time Regulations, cannot be carried over unless there is an agreement in place between the parties, which there was not.

In other words, when an individual is on long-term sick leave, only four weeks' annual leave carries over automatically - and not the additional 1.6 weeks granted by UK law which exceeds the European minimum of four weeks' annual leave.