Privilege day
A Privilege day in the United Kingdom is a day of annual leave granted to employees of the Civil Service. These are in addition to bank holidays.
Prior to 2013, there were 2.5 privilege days each year:[1][2][3]
- The Queen's Official Birthday. This is a full day usually attached to the Spring Bank Holiday, the last Monday in May, on either the Friday before the Bank Holiday or the Tuesday after (in order to create a long weekend).[2]
- Maundy Thursday. This is a half day on the afternoon of the Thursday of Holy Week.[2]
- Christmas. This is an extra full day of leave at Christmas, originally allocated in respect of the Queen's Official Birthday, in addition to the bank holidays of Christmas and Boxing Day. It is often arranged so as to connect the Christmas bank holidays to an adjacent weekend.[2]
Since reforms by the Cabinet Office in 2013, the Maundy Thursday (Easter) and Christmas privilege days are no longer available for new civil servants. For civil servants who were in their positions when the changes came into force, these 1.5 days have been converted into additional annual leave. Because the Queen's Birthday privilege day was granted by the Queen, it would have been difficult for the Cabinet Office to abolish it by an administrative measure, so the Cabinet Office decided to retain this day as a privilege day.[3][4]
FOI practice
Privilege days still count as "working days" for the purpose of freedom of information requests.[5]
References
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