As outlined in Circular 08/2023 new arrangements in relation to the carryover of annual leave will come into effect from the 2024 year onwards.
From 2024 onwards there will no longer be a 3 year carry over cycle. Instead, all officers will be permitted to carryover a balance of leave at the end of each leave year, the amount that officers are allowed to carry is limited in each year to a maximum of what was accrued in the year previous.
Any leave that is carried into a year, must be taken by a certain time frame or it will be forfeit. Leave can only be carried over once, i.e. leave that is carried into a year, cannot be carried over to another year.
In order to facilitate the taking of carryover leave in the year into which it has been carried, going forward annual leave will be taken in the following order:
1. Statutory leave carried in (to be taken within the first 6 months of the leave year into which it has been carried)
2. Non-Statutory leave carried in (to be taken by the end of the leave year into which it has been carried)
3. Statutory leave accrued
4. Non-statutory leave accrued
Carryover:
Statutory carry over should be rare, as statutory leave should normally be taken in the year in which it is accrued. In exceptional circumstances, where statutory leave could not be taken in the year in which it is accrued, it can be carried over to the subsequent leave year (following manager approval), but must be taken within the first 6 months of the leave year into which it is carried or it will be forfeit.
In order to facilitate the taking of statutory leave carried into a year, the first of the annual leave balance to be taken in any leave year will be the statutory leave that was carried into that year followed by non-statutory leave that has been carried over.
Please see the FAQ document at the bottom of page for an explanation of statutory and non-statutory annual leave and for information in relation to the drop off points.
In order to facilitate the transition from the current 3 year cycle over to the new carry over arrangements, the following transitional arrangements will apply:
If you are in Cycle Year 1:
Any unused non-statutory leave remaining at the end of the current year will automatically carryover to your new leave year starting in 2024.
Under the new circular rules, statutory leave can only ever be carried over due to exceptional business circumstances and if agreed with your line manager. A request will ordinarily need to be raised in the system to facilitate this. However, this year only, in order to facilitate a seamless transition to the new system, any unused statutory leave will carry over automatically in the system for those currently in year 1 and year 2 without the need to raise a request. (Statutory leave should still be used before the end of this year unless agreed with your line manager).
If you are in Cycle Year 2:
As a once off arrangement during the transition to the new circular, those currently in year 2 will be allowed to carryover any unused non-statutory leave accrued during year 1 and year 2 under the revoked circular rules. This will happen automatically if it remains unused at the end of the leave year.
Under the new circular rules, statutory leave can only ever be carried over due to exceptional business circumstances and if agreed with your line manager. A request will ordinarily need to be raised in the system to facilitate this. However, this year only, in order to facilitate a seamless transition to the new system, any unused statutory leave will carry over automatically in the system for those currently in year 1 and year 2 without the need to raise a request. (Statutory leave should still be used before the end of this year unless agreed with your line manager).
If you are in Cycle Year 3:
The revoked circular rules will apply at the end of the current leave year, whereby, any leave that carried into Year 3 will be forfeit at the end of the leave year if not taken by that time.
Therefore, those currently in year 3 are encouraged to avail of all of their leave before transitioning to the new rules in order to avoid forfeiting any unused leave.
As only non-statutory leave accrued in the current year can be carried over, the only circumstances whereby an officer who is currently in Year 3 might carryover leave, is if they forfeit the final category of leave.
Please see the FAQ document below for an explanation further information and examples in this regard.
FAQs
