Employers can dictate timing of holidays

The BBC was within its rights to insist that its employees take their holidays on Saturdays only, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held.

The ruling came in the case of Mr Sumsion, a standby carpenter on the production Seas of Souls who was on a five-and-a-half month contract for £1,200 per week. He could be called on to work up to six days per week, and was entitled to six days' leave during the contract.

Sumsion was required to take every second Saturday as holiday, except for a couple of occasions when he worked on the Saturday and was given time off in lieu. He argued that he should have been allowed to take his holiday in one block, and that the BBC was in breach of the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR).

But the EAT held that the WTR allow an employer to specify the days on which its employees take their holiday, and that there is nothing to prevent these days being Saturdays for those employees contracted to work on that day. Nor is there anything in the law that prevents employers from insisting that holiday is taken as single days.

Sumsion v BBC (Scotland) [2007] EAT/0042/06