27.04.16 Regular Voluntary Overtime to be considered when calculating Holiday Pay

In the case of White & Others v Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council [2016] the presiding Judge ruled that voluntary overtime, voluntary standby and voluntary call-out payments should be considered “normal pay” when undertaken with “sufficient regularity” and so, these payments should be reflected when calculating a worker’s holiday pay.

The case was brought by an employment solicitor on behalf of 56 tradesmen, including plumbers, electricians and carpenters, who were all members of trade union UCATT. The tradesmen were invited to work on a Saturday purely on a voluntary basis and they also elected to go on standby every 4 weeks. The payments to work these voluntary shifts and to be on standby equalled an extra £725 every month for the week they were on standby and so, a lot of the tradesmen relied on the overtime to make up their pay packets.

It is thought to be one of the first cases in England where voluntary overtime has been found to be included in holiday pay calculations however there still remains to be unanswered questions around what can be deemed as “sufficiently regular”.

The Judge ruled that the payment for the voluntary work should be included in the calculation of holiday pay for the first 20 days of annual leave under Regulation 13 of the Working Time Regulations. This is on the basis that the claimants had done overtime on a Saturday for a number of years and had performed call-out duties voluntarily for a number of years and so, payment for it has become part of their normal, expected pay.

We do not yet know if Dudley Council are going to appeal the decision.

This case is in line with that of Patterson v Castlereagh Borough Council which was heard in the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland. View our news item on this case here.