The announcement of a one-off bank holiday to celebrate the Scotland men's national team reaching their first world cup since 1998 has generated a great deal of excitement nationwide but also concern amongst employers as they weigh up the legal and practical implications of the additional holiday. This comes at the same time as employers are getting to grips with the new requirement for record keeping for annual leave and holiday pay which came into force on 6 April 2026.
World cup bank holiday in Scotland
Monday, 15 June 2026 has been designated a national bank holiday in Scotland, coming a few days after Scotland kick off their world cup campaign (with a decisive win over Haiti, fingers crossed). However, there is no statutory right to a day off work for bank holidays. A worker’s right to leave on bank holidays will be determined by the employment contract and an employer may be entitled to require a worker to attend work on a bank holiday. In certain industries or occupations, such as retail, hospitality and healthcare, working on bank holidays is a regular practice and is commercially and operationally necessary.
The most common contractual scenarios will be:
- Where the contact is either silent on bank and public holidays or only allows for the statutory minimum annual leave, employees will have no automatic entitlement to paid time off on the additional bank holiday.
- If the contract refers to annual leave and/plus bank holidays, the employee would be entitled to take the world cup bank holiday.
- Where the contract provides for a fixed number of days, which includes bank holidays, there is no automatic entitlement to the additional holiday for employees.
- Where specific bank holidays are listed in the contract, the employee would only be entitled to those that are specified in the contract and not the world cup holiday.
It should be noted that even where the employees are not contractually entitled to the bank holiday, employers can still offer staff the day off as a gesture of goodwill which could outweigh the business cost of losing a day’s operation.
Employers will have to manage:
- Fairness across the workforce and different teams.
- Precedent set from previous one-off bank holidays such as the Queen's funeral
- Staffing requirements, particularly in customer-facing sectors.
New holiday record keeping requirements
Employers are under a new duty to keep certain records on holiday and holiday pay which came into force on 6 April 2026. The new obligations are contained in the Employment Rights Act 2025, but the government gave no indication until the end of March of when the duty would come into force. The new duty requires employers to keep records on:
- Annual leave entitlement (for regular, irregular and part-year workers).
- Additional annual leave entitlement.
- Holiday pay entitlement.
- Payments in lieu of holiday outstanding on termination of employment, including any holiday carried forward from a previous leave year (for regular, irregular and part-year workers).
There is no prescribed format for the records, but they need to be adequate to demonstrate compliance with the new requirements and they need to be kept for six years from the date on which they are made. Failure to comply will be an offence punishable by a fine. ACAS has also published guidance to help employers navigate the new requirements.
The new enforcement body, the Fair Work Agency, will have enforcement powers to oversee holiday and holiday pay records. The Government’s policy paper setting out the Fair Work Agency’s expectations indicates it should prepare to start holiday pay enforcement in 2027.
The Fair Work Agency’s powers will be extensive. It will have the power to inspect workplaces and to require employers to produce relevant documents and evidence demonstrating compliance with employment law. Bringing holiday pay within its remit is significant for employers as it could have major cost implications for getting it wrong across a workforce. If an employer miscalculates holiday pay or misclassifies workers/employees as self-employed, the Fair Work Agency could issue notices of underpayment of holiday pay including a penalty of 200% of the underpayment (up to a maximum of £20,000 per individual) which could be costly for employers with a large workforce.
Employers will need to:
- Review and update their record keeping practices to ensure compliance with the new holiday and holiday pay requirements as soon as possible.
- Ensure holiday entitlement and holiday pay calculations are accurate and consistent and practices and procedures are well documented.
- Keep records up to date and in an easily auditable format.
Contributors to this article were David Hughes, Alanah Mills and Iain Doyle.
