Attendance and leave

• assess whether there is a service requirement during the Christmas and New Year period to operate
• if the service needs to operate how can employees working from home?
• do you have some employees who do not celebrate Christmas for religious reasons and / or individuals who do want to work during this period? If yes, how can you facilitate a working from home approach?
• if the service is non-operational or if working from home can’t be facilitated, employees will be required to use their annual leave. Note two days annual leave (pro rota for part time staff) was formally included in all corporate based employee annual leave entitlement in 2020 to accommodate a potential Christmas closure
• communicate out to the team about Christmas operating plans
• communicate out to internal and external stakeholders and customers about operating times

What do we need to do if staying open?

If open and required to work, there are certain days to be mindful of:

Bank holidays: entitlement is calculated in the ERP. If required to work on the bank holidays refer to the Allowances for Bank holidays and Concessionary Days policy

By remaining open on the Bank holidays, the service and facilities management will incur additional costs for staffing an opening, unless working from home arrangements can be agreed. It is advised that if your service is usually non-operational on a Bank holiday it remains so on the Bank holidays over the Christmas period. Please discuss with your Strategic HR Business Partner.

The Concessionary Day: entitlement is calculated outside of ERP. If required to work on the Concessionary Day (Wednesday 27 December 2023) refer to the Allowances for Bank holidays and Concessionary Days policy

Weekends: for some service areas these are normal working days. Payment for weekend working is as per contract of employment. If your service is normally non-operational at the weekend, we advise that it remains non-operational over the Christmas period.

Normal working days:the remaining days as shown above, unless agreed by the line manager and senior manager will be normal working days and employees will be required to work as per their contracted hours and work schedule.

If our employees are required/wish to work but the building is closed over the Christmas period, what should happen?

If there is a requirement or wish to work, individuals need to work from home. If they are unable to work from home, they will be required to take annual leave / annualised hours or unpaid leave. This should be agreed with the line manager in advance.

What do I need to do if the service is non-operational and we are not required to work?

Bank holidays; if you are not required to work on the Bank Holidays (Monday 25 December 2023, Tuesday 26 December 2023 and/or 2 January 2024 (from the 2024 entitlement) refer to the 'Bank holidays 2023' section below.

The Concessionary Day; entitlement is calculated and managed outside of ERP. Please refer to the FAQ’s below regarding entitlement to the Concessionary day.

Weekends; if the service is non-operational over the Christmas period and the employee doesn’t normally work at the weekend they would not be required to book annual leave for these days.

Normal working days; if the service is non-operational the employee must book annual leave / annualised hours or unpaid leave for all of their normal working days they are not required to work.

If the line manager and senior manager deems that the service can be non-operational over the Christmas period, they will need to communicate with employees to ensure that annual leave is used in the first instance to book the days off. Annual leave must be booked through ERP.

What are the working and payment arrangements for Christmas Day and Boxing Day 2024 and New Year’s Day 2025?

Pay and time off arrangements for employees required to work on Christmas day / Boxing Day / New Year will be communicated once confirmed by the Local Government Association (LGA).

The Concessionary Day is Friday 27 December 2024. Employees are entitled to one day's concessionary holiday (pro-rota for part time staff).

Full year working

Your entitlement to the Concessionary Day needs to be managed outside of the ERP, you need to do the following:

1. Work out your entitlement for the day (see Qu 9 below)
2. If the 27 December falls on your normal working day, but you aren't required to work because of the closure, you need to deduct your normal contracted hours for the day from your entitlement. If you do not normally work on the day the concessionary day falls, you do not deduct any hours from your entitlement.
3. If you're left with a credit, you must take the time off by 31 March 2024. If you have a debit you need to make the hours up at a time that suits you and your manager.

Term time only

If you are on a term time only contract the concessionary day has been built into your working weeks calculation so no action is required and you do not need to manage this day outside of the ERP.

Please note that if your service is closed on the concessionary day and you are not required to work, you don't need to book annual leave in ERP for that day.

How is my entitlement to the Concessionary day calculated?

A full-time employee will be entitled to a maximum of 7.4 hours time off with pay. A part-time employee can work out their entitlement to time off with pay as follows:

Contracted hours divided by 37 hours per week = a pro rata decimal amount, multiply by 7.4 hours = part-time entitlement.

e.g. 20 hours contract/37 = 0.54 x 7.4 = 4 hours entitlement.

What do I do after I’ve worked out my entitlement to the Concessionary day?

If your service is non-operational on the concessionary day and it is your usual working day, deduct your normal contracted hours from your entitlement.

For example:

If you normally work five hours you'll need to deduct five hours from your entitlement or,

If you normally don’t work on the day the concessionary day falls, you don’t deduct any hours from your entitlement. You are able to take your entitlement at a later date.

Record your entitlement and any hours deducted via your local hours of work recording sheet/log/’The Working Hours Template – recording annualised hours’. Information about recording working hours and the template can be found at on the 'how do I record my working hours' page.

If I leave the Council before the Concessionary day, am I entitled to a pro rata amount of leave?

No, in the same way as a Bank holiday, if you are employed on the day the Concessionary day falls you receive an entitlement to the day. If you leave before the Concessionary day, you do not receive a pro rata amount of leave to take before you finish.

I’m Corporate term time only do I get an entitlement to the Concessionary day?

Yes, the entitlement to the Concessionary Day has been grouped with the Bank holidays and is built into the weeks per year calculation which forms part of your contracted working weeks. You do not need to manage the entitlement.

I work for Shire Services term time only, do I get an entitlement to the Concessionary Day?

Yes, the entitlement to the Concessionary Day has been grouped with the Bank holidays and is built into the weeks per year calculation which forms part of your contracted working weeks. You do not need to manage the entitlement.

Do I need to save annual leave for Christmas and New Year period?

If your service will be non-operational over Christmas and you are not required to work, employees in the service area will need to book annual leave as appropriate. For every day the service is closed, if the employee normally works they will need to book off their normal working days. The annual leave must be booked in ERP. You do not need to book annual leave on the days the Bank Holidays fall. You can find out how to check your annual leave and bank holiday entitlement here.

For those employees in service areas continuing to operate over the Christmas and New Year period, will need to have a discussion with their line manager if they wish to book any annual leave.

My service is going to be open, can I book annual leave over the Christmas period?

The employee must discuss their request with their manager at the earliest opportunity. A manager may receive several requests and employees are advised that the manager will need to consider the needs of the service. Where possible the manager will grant the annual leave request but some leave requests may have to be refused.

Employees are reminded to book their leave in ERP throughout the year to help manage their wellbeing.

I have changed my hours part way through the year, will my entitlement to annual leave need to be recalculated?

Yes. If your contracted hours increase/decrease part way through the year your entitlement to annual leave will need to be recalculated, effective from the date of the change. This is done automatically in the ERP. However, please note that if you have annual leave that has been booked and approved that is due to be taken after the change in hours occurs, you'll need to open the absence and resubmit it to your line manager. This is because once annual leave has been approved it's coded into the system, and the ERP can't automatically update it where there has been a change in contracted hours.

To reopen an annual leave request, go to Your Employment/ Absences/ click in Approved

All of your pre-booked leave request will show, click in the one that you want to update, the detail of the leave request will open and then simply ‘Send for approval’. ERP will recalculate the number of hours you are requesting.

Example: Employee works 37 hours per week from 01/01/2024 and books all of their leave for the year 2024 in January 2024. Then from 1 September 2024 their hours decrease to 30 per week. The employee will need to go into their approved absences and resubmit any of the annual leave absences that occur from 1 September 2024 onwards, so that the hours to be taken are accurately reflected in the system.

What happens if I have used all my annual leave before the Christmas period?

Employees should ensure they have sufficient leave if there is a requirement or wish to be absent from work over the Christmas and New Year period. Two days (pro-rata) were contractually allocated to all corporate based staff in 2020 to be reserved each year to account for the potential of not being operational during this period. We recommend that when you know the Christmas working arrangements you use ERP to book the days off that you usually work. If you have insufficient leave remaining, you'll need to use annualised hours or take the time off without pay – in the first instance please discuss with your line manager.

Refer to the Annual leave entitlement policy for full details regarding annual leave.

I’m corporate/Shire Services term time only, how is my annual leave calculated?

Employees who work term time only are not required to work during the school holidays. Entitlement to annual leave is built into the contracted working weeks, for which they are paid. Term time only employees are not required to book annual leave because they automatically have leave during school holidays when they are not required to work.

Can I carry over annual leave into the new leave year?

No, unless in line with the Annual Leave Entitlement Policy, up to five days maximum, only in exceptional circumstances, can be carried into the next leave year when approved by your line manager. Where a service is operational over Christmas and New Year and the 2 days leave cannot be taken, Annual leave which is carried forward from 2023 must be booked and taken by the end of March 2024. Further guidance will follow towards the end of the year.

Will unused annual leave automatically be carried forward in ERP into the new leave year?

No. This is because annual leave can only be carried forward in exceptional circumstances. Please refer to the Annual Leave Entitlement Policy.

Once you have been notified that an employee is pregnant you will need to initially do the following:

• Carry out a risk assessment for their current position (no later than 10 working days after the notification) to identify any potential risks to an employee while she is pregnant, taking into account any relevant advice from the GP or midwife. Any potential risks should be removed, or if this is not possible, alternative temporary working arrangements made.
• Ask the employee to complete the Maternity Notification Form in the ERP and to attach both sides of her MATB1 form. 
• Follow the remaining guidance found in the Managers maternity pack.

If it is not possible to alter the employees working conditions to remove the risk, and there is no suitable alternative work available the employee may be suspended from work on maternity grounds, until such time as there is no longer a risk or she goes on maternity leave. This suspension does not affect any employee’s statutory or contractual rights. The employee will be entitled to her normal salary and contractual benefits during the suspension unless she has unreasonably refused an offer of suitable alternative employment. Please notify Human Resources for further advice.

If the employee is returning from their ordinary maternity leave (the first 26 weeks of leave), they have the right to return to the job in which they were previously employed, on the same benefits, terms and conditions. If the employee is returning from their additional maternity leave, they have the right to return to the same job, or one with no less favourable terms and conditions if it is genuinely not reasonably practicable for them to return to their former job.

As long as a fair selection process is applied across the pool for selection it is possible that a pregnant employee or one on maternity leave may be selected for dismissal by reason of redundancy. Obviously pregnancy (or absence on maternity leave) must not be used as a selection criterion for redundancy. However, if absence is one of the criteria to be used then any absences that relate directly to the pregnancy or to time off for dependents should be disregarded in the scoring to avoid any inference of sex discrimination.

Employees who are pregnant or on maternity leave can be notified of the redundancy process, invited to redundancy consultation meetings, included in the pool and considered for redeployment in the usual way.

However, if employees who have actually commenced their maternity leave are selected for redundancy then special provisions apply to them. They must be given first refusal on any available suitable alternative employment. Please seek further guidance from Human Resources.

Yes employees of the authority will continue to accrue any contractual leave and benefits during her period of maternity leave in line with her employment contract.

In order to manage service needs employees should take all pro-rated leave prior to commencement  and before returning to work, and only in exceptional circumstances will accrued leave be allowed to be carried forward in accordance with the annual leave policy, up to a maximum of 5 days with approval.

Yes, any period of time during the course of a day would count as one KIT day, but the actual hours worked would be used to calculate any TOIL leave.

Log into the ERP and select ‘Your Employment’ ‘Personnel Information’.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and select ‘Balance’.

The balances screen will open, for example:

Line 1. 'Annual Leave' shows the full time equivalent annual leave entitlement. Based on service of more or less than 5 years, either 27 days (200 hours) or 32 days (237 hours). Since April 2023 the entitlement for the year is 28 days (207 hours) or 33 days (244 hours) depending on length of service. This line can be ignored by staff.

Line 2. ‘Current Entitlement’ shows the annual leave for the employee. Pro-rata leave entitlement in hours for a part time and/or part year employee will show here. 

Line 3.  ‘Bank Hol Entitlement’. Shows the adjustments for the bank holidays that needs to be made, as either a debit or a credit which will be subtracted or added to your annual leave entitlement. Debits are shown in red.

Line 4. ‘Overall Entitlement’ balance is shown, the Bank Holiday debit will have been deducted, or the credit added. The number of hours that the employee can book as leave shows here.

Line 5. ‘Taken/Booked’ shows the annual leave requested and taken. 

Line 6. ‘Remaining Entitlement’ shows the leave balance available to book. Ensure enough leave is available to book the Christmas closure days.

There are a few things you should do in the first instance;

• Check your balance as described above in Q1.
• Check your work schedule, as described in Q3. The work schedule must be correct to calculate annual leave and bank holiday entitlement accurately.  If your work schedule is incorrect your line manager will need to update it, refer them to Q4 below.
• Do you have a fixed term contract or secondment? Where an employee has a fixed term contract or secondment, the ERP will calculate annual leave and bank holiday entitlement until the end date of the contract/secondment.  If the contract is extended the entitlement will be recalculated.
• Check your length of service

If your annual leave entitlement is incorrect and you feel that you have more than 5 years’ service refer to Q5. 

• Have you changed your hours during the year? If so, refer to Q7
• Manually check your Annual leave entitlement Q8
• Manually check your Bank holiday entitlement Q9

Log into the ERP and select Personnel information:

On the Personnel information screen select the Employment tab:

Double click on the main Position line:

Your Position details will be displayed.

Under the ‘Employment details’ section, your working pattern and contracted hours can be seen: 

In the example below this working pattern is as follows

37 hours a week starting on Monday to Friday working 7.4 hours per day, Saturday and Sunday are non-working days.

If you have more than one position, repeat the process for each position to check each work schedule. If it is incorrect, please notify your manager so they can amend your work schedule.

To check your employee’s work schedule, log into the ERP, select Personnel/ Your Employees/ select the person and tab/ Select ‘Line Management’ at the top, the work schedule will be visible for the team member.

If the work schedule is incorrect, the manager must complete a Contract/Position change form in the ERP. You can do this in the ‘Change Details’ section, under ‘Type of Change’ select ‘Change to Working schedule’ to notify HR of the amended details.

If your employee works a more complex shift pattern, a rolling rota or has a flexible working pattern please contact Resourcing@shropshire.gov.uk to help create an appropriate work schedule for the position. The work schedule must be correct to ensure leave entitlement is accurate.

Previous continuous service and broken service with employers on the Redundancy Payments Modification Order (Local Government) 1983 will count toward annual leave entitlement.

Firstly, check your service dates in the ERP. Log in and select Your Employment / Personnel Information and then select the Personnel tab. Scroll down the page to the ‘Aggregated Service Date’ and check that the date shown is correct as per the example calculation below. 

Aggregated Service Date - Example Calculation

The aggregated service date totals all previous service (excluding part months). In this example the employee has previous service dates of 10 January 2013 to 30 April 2018 which equates to 5 years and 3 months (February 2013 – April 2018).

In order to calculate the aggregated service date, you then work back 5 years and 3 months from your current start date. Therefore, if the current start date was 17/01/2020 the aggregated service date, counting back 5 years and 3 months would be 17/10/2014.

If your aggregated service date does not accurately reflect your total length of service, please email evidence of your previous service to payroll.notifications@shropshire.gov.uk

Please note that your aggregated service date may be different to your continuous service date which will be the date on which your current employment with Shropshire Council commenced or the date of any continuous previous service with any public authority to which the Redundancy Payments Modification Order (Local Government) 1983 applies.

Your annual leave entitlement will automatically be recalculated in the ERP at the start of the year in which you reach your five-year anniversary. 

Any duration worked from 1 January until your five-year anniversary will be calculated based on 28 days (207 hours) entitlement. The remainder of the year after your five-year anniversary will be based on 33 days (244 hours) entitlement. You will receive a pro-rata allowance for this year.  

If you work part-time, your entitlement will be calculated on a pro-rata basis in the ERP. 

To manually calculate your entitlement please use the annual leave calculator.

If your contracted hours increase/decrease part way through the year the ERP will automatically update your annual leave entitlement, effective from the date of the change. Please note if you have annual leave that has been booked and approved that is due to be taken after the change in hours occurs, you’ll need to open the absence and resubmit the absence to your line manager. This is because once annual leave has been approved it’s coded into the system, and the ERP can’t automatically update it where there has been a change in contracted hours.

Example: Employee works 37 hours per week from 01/01/2020 and books all of their leave for 2020 in January. Then from 01 September 2020 their hours decrease to 30 per week. The employee will need to go into their approved absences and resubmit any of the annual leave absences that occur from 01 September 2020 onwards, so that the hours to be taken are accurately reflected in the system.

Please access the annual leave calculator if you wish to check your annual leave.

There are generally eight bank holidays during the year. A full-time employee will be entitled to eight days x 7.4 hours = 59.2 hours paid time off work.

A part-time employee has a pro rata entitlement. To work out the pro rata entitlement, do the following calculation:

Contracted weekly hours/37 hours = y x 59.2 hours = entitlement for the year.

Each time a bank holiday occurs, if you're due to work your contracted hours for the day need to be deducted from your entitlement. You'll benefit from your contracted hours off work with pay. If the bank holiday falls on a day you weren't due to work, no hours are deducted from your balance.

You may have a debit or credit at the end of the year. A credit can be taken as time off, a debit needs to be made up.

Examples showing how to check overall entitlement in the ERP

How do I check that my overall entitlement is correct? Example 1

Log into the ERP, select Absences.

The overall entitlement shows annual leave and bank holiday entitlement in hours for the year. You'll also see how many hours you've booked and how many are remaining.

Checking annual leave entitlement using the annual leave calculator

Please use the annual leave calculator to check your annual leave.

The following shows a screen shot from the Annual Leave Calculator.

In this example, the employee has more than 5 years’ service, we have entered 33 days holiday entitlement which will be pro-rated for the part time employee.

This employee works Wednesday and Thursday each week on a 14.8 hour contract, enter the contracted hours

The employee is entitled to 97.68 hours annual leave.

Checking bank holiday entitlement for the part timer

The ERP will also factor in bank holidays. (Nb. although this example is from 2020 the principle is the same). 

Continuing the example above, the employee works 14.8 hours per week, Wednesday 7.4 hours and Thursday 7.4 hours (full-time equivalent is eight bank holidays in 2020 x 7.4 hours = 59.2 hours). 

Calculate the pro-rata allowance by dividing contracted hours by full time hours, i.e., 14.8 hours/37 = 0.4 then multiply this by FTE bank holiday entitlement as follows:

0.4 x 59.2 hours = 23.68 hours, this is the pro-rata bank holiday entitlement. 

This employee works Wednesday and Thursday, in 2020 one bank holiday falls on a normal working day (1/1/20).

Therefore, 23.68 hours – 7.4 hours = 16.28 hours, which is added to the leave balance. 

94.72 hours annual leave + 16.28 hours bank Holiday entitlement = 111 hours ‘Overall Entitlement’.

Then go to and check the current entitlement, bank holiday entitlement and overall entitlement lines (as shown in Q1). If you have any queries, please email Ask.HR@shropshire.gov.uk

How do I check that my overall entitlement is correct? Example 2

Log into the ERP, select Absences.

The overall entitlement is showing annual leave and bank holiday entitlement for the year. You'll also see how many hours you've booked and how many are remaining.

Checking annual leave entitlement using the annual leave calculator

Please use the annual leave calculator to check your annual leave.

The following shows a screen shot from the Annual leave calculator.

In this example, the employee has more than 5 years’ service, we have entered 33 days holiday entitlement which will be pro-rated for the part time employee.

The employee works Mon, Tues and Wed each week on a 22.5 hour contract, enter the contracted hours.

Annual leave entitlement is 97.68 hours.

Checking bank holiday entitlement for the part timer

The ERP will also factor in bank holidays.

Continuing the example above, the employee works 22.5 hours per week, Monday 7.5 hours, Tuesday 7.5 hours and Wednesday 7.5 hours. (Please note this employee is contracted for 7.5 hours a day, a standard day is 7.4 hours). (Full time equivalent is eight bank holidays in 2020 x 7.4 hours = 59.2 hours).

Calculate pro-rata allowance by dividing contracted hours by full time hours i.e. 22.5 hours/37 = 0.61 then multiply this by FTE bank holiday entitlement as follows:

0.61 x 59.2 hours = 36 hours, this is the pro-rata bank holiday entitlement. 

This employee works Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. In 2020 five bank holidays fall on a normal working day (1/1/20, 13/4/20, 25/5/20, 31/8/20, 28/12/20).

Therefore, 36 hours – 37.5 hours (five bank holidays x 7.5 hours) = 1.5 debit which is deducted from the leave balance.

144 hours annual leave – 1.5 hours bank holiday debit = 142.5 hours. 

Then go into the ERP and check the current entitlement, bank holiday entitlement and overall entitlement lines (as shown in Q1). If you have any queries, please email Ask.HR@shropshire.gov.uk

Line managers can view their dashboard.

Alternatively, in the ERP, to see the remaining balance for each resource in your team, navigate the following:

• Homescreen menu
• Reports

• Reports across client – Global reports
• HR/Payroll
• Line Manager Reports
• Annual Leave

• LM021: Team Annual Leave Balance

• The report template will open. Click Search.
• 
• The whole report will open. Amend the date to search the year in question e.g. ‘date from’ 01/01/2024, and ‘date to’ to 31/12/2024. Click search again to reveal the remaining balances shown in hours and minutes.

Or, refer to the guidance video you will need to add the dates as shown above.

Alternatively, to see how the line manager can create a report in the ERP to see which staff have been absent and the reasons why, follow the link LM Total Absence per Resource report.  To see the annual leave all of the team have taken, search on Annual leave and enter the ‘date from’ 01.01.24 and ‘date to’ 31.12.24’ and search.

The report will show the dates, days and hours each employee has booked so far in the year.   

An additional day of annual leave was awarded in April 2023, please refer to previous comms. 

Due to rounding’s in the ERP (rounds to the nearest half hour, either up or down) the entitlements are:

At the end of the year when a full-time employee has booked 27 or 32 days of their entitlement they will have a balance of 7.2 hrs left. This is not a full 7.4 hr day (7 hrs and 24 minutes), so, to book the remaining 7.2 hrs balance, they need to do the following:

In the ERP/ Your employment/ Absences/ Absence request/ select Annual leave/ select the appropriate date/

Select No.

Key in 7.2 hrs (7 hrs and 12 mins). Click ok.

When booking your absence on your timesheet, book 7.4 hours (not 7.2 hrs).

There is no action required for part time staff.  

You can check the number of hours you have taken/ booked and the number of hours remaining for the year. Log into the ERP. On the Home screen you will see the following chart;

• Hover over the blue segment, it will show how many hours are remaining.
• Hover over the taken/booked segment and it will show how many hours annual leave you have had approved.

Alternatively, you can check the dates of the annual leave booked/ taken from the Menu screen, select Your employment/ Personnel information.

Select Balance at the bottom of the screen.

The balance screen will open, you will see the Remaining Entitlement

Additionally, you can check the hours you have booked by selecting Your employment and Absences.

The screen will show you the Overall entitlement, Taken/booked and Remaining Entitlement.

Click on Approved.

By changing the date in the ‘Show absences back to’ box, you can see annual taken/booked in previous years.