The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that where an employee chooses not to take statutory annual leave during sick leave, he or she can carry forward the untaken annual leave for up to 18 months from the end of the leave year in which the leave arises.
The Northern Ireland Court of Appeal has held that there is no reason in principle why voluntary overtime should not be included in holiday pay, if it is normally carried out and is an "appropriately permanent feature" of the worker's remuneration.
On its return from the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the employment tribunal in this important case has read an extra subsection into the Working Time Regulations 1998 (SI 1998/1833) to comply with the Working Time Directive (2003/88/EC).
In Bear Scotland Ltd and others v Fulton and others; Hertel (UK) Ltd v Woods and others; Amec Group Ltd v Law and others [2015] IRLR 15 EAT, the EAT held that payment in respect of overtime that the worker is obliged to work when it is available, but that is not guaranteed by the employer, constitutes part of the worker's normal remuneration and as such should be included in the computation of the worker's holiday pay.
In Sood Enterprises Ltd v Healy [2013] IRLR 865 EAT, the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that workers on long-term sick leave who have not taken their annual holiday entitlement may not carry over the additional 1.6 weeks' leave to which UK workers are entitled without an agreement to do so.