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New coronavirus FAQs on annual leave and sick pay

In response to Covid-19 and our new working arrangements, adjustments have been made to policies covering  annual leave and additional sick pay. FAQs on these changes are now available on our staff coronavirus webpages.

Annual leave

Our Executive Group and JSNCC have agreed some principles for interim annual leave arrangements during 2020.  These are aimed at ensuring staff continue to take annual leave wherever possible to promote wellbeing and to avoid staff losing untaken leave at the end of the year:

  • Staff are encouraged to still take annual leave during the current period of disruption, even if they are at home.
  • Staff wishing to cancel booked leave should immediately re-book it on confirmation that their request has been authorised.
  • KVSS applications, where approved, will be conditional on all outstanding leave (pro-rata) being taken prior to the last day of service.
  • For those staff with an additional work burden due to Covid-19 or maintaining essential operations on campus, we will increase the carry forward above 5 days, in line with the amended Working Time Directive.
  • There will be no change to the current policy of not ‘buying out’ untaken leave at the end of the year, and that any untaken leave, over and above what can be carried forward will be lost. 

Additional sick pay

The NHS has advised hospitals to suspend all non-emergency elective procedures for an undetermined period, possibly for a number of months, because of the surge in coronavirus patients.

To ensure staff already in receipt of long-term sick pay are not disadvantaged by the NHS delay, the University plans to maintain the current level of sick pay (either full pay or half-pay) for an initial period of up to three months, pending receipt of a (new) treatment date.  These arrangements will be reviewed after three months if the NHS continues to defer treatments or if delays are experienced due to a high backlog of deferred treatments.

If you have any questions on these new arrangements, email the HR Operations Team hropsteam@kent.ac.uk.

Other new FAQs

Other new FAQs on our staff coronavirus webpages include the University’s approach to the Government’s Staff Retention Scheme.