Term Time Members – Annual Leave

All Term Time Members

Dear Colleague

Additional Days Annual leave

Can I first of all thank all the term time members who responded to my email last Friday regarding the additional annual leave day. I have received a large number responses, views, observations and of course preferences regarding the two options.

We now require to undertake a formal consultative ballot of all members. This will be done electronically and will launch tomorrow. You will receive an e-mail with the ballot link. You will be asked to confirm that you are a term time member and then to click on the link indicating your preference. We want to turn this ballot around quickly and so have set a deadline of Thursday 17th November for the ballot to close.

If you are a member in a school or ELC who does not work term time but receives the email then you should ignore it.

In your email responses a number of questions were raised regarding the additional annual leave days so I hope the points below may provide some clarification.

The council have advised that they are unable to operate two different term time calculators. On that basis the extra annual leave day will have to be given as a holiday for all term-time members or incorporated into everyone’s salary.

If the majority of members vote to have the extra day as a holiday then a calculation will be done to work out  your annual leave entitlement. If you currently work over 5 days and work the same number of hours each day (this is the case for the vast majority of term time members) then the calculation is very straightforward and you would be awarded a day off. If you work less than 5 days each week and/or your working pattern is irregular then you will be awarded the extra annual leave in hours. This is what currently happens to all other council employees.

If members vote to have the extra day incorporated into the salary then this will add one day to your existing annual leave entitlement. The  extra money will be spread across your 13 pays as happens at the moment with the rest of your annual leave.

Robin Taggart

Branch Secretary