Several employment questions:

1. What is the normal / legal contractual employment hours per week. Is it 35, 37.5, or ...?

2. Is there a standard / legal minimum number of annual leave days per year?

3. I would like to employ an unemployed volunteer part-time without affecting the persons unemployment & housing benefits. Please confirm the maximum number of hours a person can work and maximum earnings to ensure no benefits are lost.

This follows on from the previous Q&A ...

Q: When she has a day off for sickness or annual leave she maintains that she should count that as an 8 hour day. I'm not sure about that. she is currently on one month's sick leave and I am inclined to say for long term sickness 8 hours is OK as she cannot do any of her hours. Your views please?

A: ... ... if (as I assume is the case) the contract says that pay will be maintained ... then over a long period of illness such as you describe you should ... ...

New Q: Thank you. I think you have sorted the sickness part of my question. I am just left with trying to get my head round the Annual Leave bit. When she takes a day's leave does that count for 7 hours (which is all she ever works in one day) or as she maintains 8 hours because that is what she is paid for? It's quite straightforward for all other part time staff because their contracts do not state that they must 'bank' hours?

We are considering offering an intership to carry out a short-term (6-8 weeks) piece of research. We'd like to give the intern a daily payment for each day that they're with us.

Could you please advise on whether:

- we need to provide a written contract
- the payment would be subject to income tax and NI deductions
- whether the intern would be eligible for statutory sick pay if unable to attend through illness
- whether the intern would be eligible for paid holiday.

Thanks

We have an employee who is signed off sick until mid-February. She has been with our organisation for some time and has contractual entitlement to 10 weeks’ sick pay at full rate and a further 10 weeks at half pay. She will be starting the period of half pay one week before she is due to return to work (unless she is signed off for a further period).

A colleague who is involved in finalising a personnel budget has asked whether, instead of being paid at half-pay, she could elect to take annual leave during this period, which would presumably be paid at the full rate.

Am I right in thinking that an employee can’t take annual leave if signed off sick? My understanding is that, if she has annual leave pending, she would need to take it after her return to work or be paid for it if she decides to leave. Is that correct?

There’s nothing in her contract or terms and conditions that say anything different. If she is still off sick at the point when her contractual sickpay comes to an end (i.e. at the end of the 10-week period of half pay), she will be on nil pay until/unless she returns to work. I assume that this is the point at which she could take any remaining annual leave. Would be grateful for your advice.