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Bank Holiday for King’s Coronation

Kings-Coronation

It has been confirmed that the coronation of His Majesty King Charles III will be marked with a national bank holiday across the UK.

Why is this important?

This bank holiday will operate in the same way as other bank holidays, and so employers will need to consider whether staff will be entitled to time off.

There is no statutory entitlement to time off for any bank holidays, and so whether employees are entitled to the day as holiday depends on the wording in their contract of employment.

If the contract states that their holiday entitlement includes all bank holidays, then employees would have the contractual right to time off for the bank holiday.

However, the wording in employment contracts on these matters can vary. So, for example, the contract may state that employees are only entitled to the “usual” bank holidays. Given that the bank holiday for the coronation is not one of the “usual” bank holidays, staff would not be contractually entitled to time off in those circumstances.

Nonetheless, many employees will be expecting the day off (especially if they are not usually required to work on bank holidays), and so employers should consider whether they wish to exercise their discretion to allow this.

What should you do?

  • Check your employment contracts to determine whether staff have a contractual right to time off for this bank holiday.
  • If they don’t, consider whether you will allow staff to have the day off in any event.
  • Keep your staff informed and updated with respect to your plans for the bank holiday. If you establish that your contracts don’t give you suitable flexibility with regards to this, they may benefit from a review and update.

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