In 2014, the government introduced a limit of two years for claiming back pay – but similar legislation wasn’t brought in for Northern Ireland.
The Court of Appeal in Belfast recently ruled that staff in the Police Service in Northern Ireland (PSNI) are owed backdated holiday pay covering the past 20 years.
That’s right, 20 years!
The problem was that PSNI holiday pay had been calculated on basic working hours, not actual hours and overtime worked.
Holiday pay should be calculated on the basis of actual working days each year. This is in line with existing European law. So a group representing more than 3,700 police officers and civilian staff brought a class action.
The original tribunal was held in November 2018. More recently, Chief Constable George Hamilton and the Police Authority (now the Policing Board) brought an appeal to challenge the period of time that settlements should cover.
At the appeal court, judges decided the calculations should go back as far as 1998.
This decision means that qualifying staff will each receive an average of £10,000, and it will cost PSNI a total of £40m – a significant sum for Stormont budgets.
The ruling could also affect other workers in the NI public sector (that’s about 208,000 people according to the latest official figures). In fact, NI Water, NI Fire and Rescue Service, Translink, and Stormont’s Department of Finance have already announced that they are considering the issue.
It might also apply to employees in the NI private sector.
What this means to you
Note that this case doesn’t set a precedent (despite what has been reported in the media). It merely confirms that overtime should be considered when your employer calculates holiday pay.
If you do regular overtime or get allowances, and they are not included in your holiday pay, you might be entitled to make a claim.
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