Richard Brooks has just tweeted the following:
"What would your boss say if you asked to cash in 70 days unused leave? Have £50k? So said HMRC to retiring D Hartnett"Seemingly, being able to cash in such a large holiday bank is not within the rules for less elevated civil servants (I understand that the norm is about a week or so).
Comments and views welcome!
Tax does have to be taxing.
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I'd imagine that most of the lower grades would be told tough shit! as they're only allowed to carry 10 days leave forward to the following year... I think this may have recently to zero.
ReplyDeleteThen again I'd doubt that any of the lower grades would be mad enough to have leave left over!
Its not like he needed the leave though is it? when every day was a rather good jolly!!
Hartnett? Oh yes I remember, the sommelier of the Swivel Service with a penchant for being wined and dined, and yet he could not even secure a conviction against a comedian, no not an excom member, Ken Dodd! Mind you the prosecution QC came in for a lot of stick from the trial Judge as well, something like incompetance I seem to recall! Leveson chappie i believe, funny olde world?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, based on the figures quoted above, Hartnett was good value for money at £1/4m salary approx?
Vampire Squid succubus.
People working in referrals offices of the call centres have effectively been told that - unless they've booked it three months or more in advance - they won't be able to take any leave during the 2nd half of July and the whole of August, and that those offices must have a minimum of 80% of staff in every day all the year round, even (or especially) during school holidays, Xmas & Easter.
ReplyDeleteAnd at the same time, we've been told that we will most definitely *not* be allowed to carry more than 10 days over from one year to the next. Which means an awful lot of people will be taking leave in November...
The old system (changed about 2 months ago) was you could:
ReplyDelete- carry forward 5 days to the next year AND
- bank 5 days.
Obviously, you had to use the 5 days carried forward in the next year. A lot of people used to build up a bank until they retired, then they'd set certain retirement date but take a big holiday at the end using the bank so actually leave earlier.
As far as I know:
- this system applied to all grades;
- there was no limit to how big the bank could grow (subject toyou only banking 5 days a year; and
- there was no limit to how much of your bank you could use in one go, including immediately before retirement.
What they've done now is put a stop to people banking new leave. Existing banks can still be used. From memory I think they might also have increased the roll-over to 10 days.
Portraying this as giving the staff member some money, as Brooks does, is a bit odd. They're actually just getting the leave to which they're entitled, albeit years layer. In an age of below-inflation salary increases, this actually saves the department quite a bit money.
I couldn't care less about Hartnett, but the withdrawal of banking of leave makes me spit tacks.
Stew G
One of my colleagues with > 40 years service was totally unaware of the ability to bank 5 days. Mind you he was a drone! Did this just apply to the leaders?
DeleteI'm pretty sure it was all grades, but I may be wrong. I'll try to find out, but the information might not be easily available any more now that it's changed.
DeleteSG
Ah yes, one rule for them and one rule for us.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see that a few more colleagues are prepared to post these days, hopefully a few more will join us. Don't be afraid of bullying management, their time is approaching. Encourage your MP's to speak to others, they are just beginning to realise the scale of the problem, CPS included, and some searching questions are already being asked at Ministerial level.
Oh yes, Hartnett, self-serving by the evidence of his rapid re-employment following "retirement". Wonder if his CV includes what the PAC said to him about lying, doubt it.
BTW how do you retain top level security clearance if a House of Commons PAC has accused you of lying? How do you remain employed by HMRC in the legal arena if the PAC won't let you speak unless you take an oath? How do you remain in a management post managing people when you have a discipline record so bad it included a statement that you should never manage staff again? (notice the past tense!) How do you remain in a post managing staff when the throughput of your staff and and sickness levels far exceeds the average (stress included)? How do such managers remain in the evidential chain? All these questions and more were put in front of Hartnett or his managers and not acted upon them. Of course, kept compartmentalised even a Tsunami leaves but a ripple in passing.
Time to stand up and be counted HMRC colleagues, help prevent further breaking of the law by your management.
I would applaud, encourage and totally support any attempt by Professional Standards/IA to get on top of this situation and bring the perpetrators to book via the IPCC/HMIC route in the public interest if nothing else.