Forced holidays - notice period?

[Easty-5]

I resigned from my job last Friday and gave my 4 weeks notice. I have effectively been put on gardening leave. However, i have 8 days holiday to take and they have stated that i will be considered to be on holiday for 8 days of my leave. Now my contract states that i must give 4 weeks notice for any holidays that are over 2 days long, but no mention of how long my employer must give me. Am i correct in saying that employers must give you the same ammount of notice as you have to give them?

[davepoth]

I'd say they were justified. If you really wanted those 8 days you should have given your notice as 4 weeks + 8 days, and then taken the holiday at the end.

[Vee]

Assume you your contract didn't require 4 weeks notice for holiday.
If you handed in your notice and had days owed to you, you'd reduce your notice period accordingly (ie expect to leave earlier).
Therefore the same applies here - just that you're not working the notice but are sat at home.

[Easty-5]

I'm not worried whether it is justified or not, I need to know, from employment law, does an employer have to give you as much notice for holidays as you have to give them.

They have met the Working Time Regulation 1988 15(4) by giving me 16 days notice before being required to take my 8 days. However, by not extending the same notice period to me, that I must give them, would this be deemed as unfair by an employment tribunal? According to the directGov website an employer must give you the same amount of notice as you have to give them.

I need facts here, not what people think.

Thanks in advance.

[Easty-5]

Anybody up to speed on employment law?

[c8bof]

From CIPD:

"There have not been many reported cases concerning notice of holiday, but one example comes from the case of Industrial Commerce Maintenance Ltd v Briffa (unreported, EAT/0215/08 and EAT/0216/08 22 July 2008, EAT). In this case the employee had one week’s holiday outstanding to him and was told he must take it when he was given one week's notice of termination of his employment. The Employment Appeal Tribunal held that Regulation 15 of the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR) did require an employer to give double the number of days notice of holiday time to be taken. However, this could be varied by a relevant agreement and there was a contractual term in this employee’s contract which enabled the employer to act as they did. The policy behind the WTR was to ensure that workers take sufficient holiday with pay which had happened in this case."

So it looks as though it depends on what your contract and T&Cs say about holidays, notice periods and a combination thereof.