This means that HMRC staff who received authorisation to take over more than 10 days’ leave into next year’s holiday allocation are not entitled to the carryover as there is a 10-day limit.

HMRC has told managers to tell staff their excess leave will be ‘retrospectively revoked’ and that any carryover of annual leave beyond the normal 10 days will be withdrawn by the department in December.

Under HMRC’s policy, requests to carry over in excess of 10 days annual leave can be granted under specific circumstances (as a result of sickness absence, family leave, reservist mobilisation, TUPE/COSOP protection or parental bereavement leave).

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents unionised managers at HMRC, has been informed that some managers have been granting these requests using an alternative code in the HR system which is not intended for use in HMRC.

According to PCS, HMRC has attempted to discourage managers from taking this approach, but the practice has continued, and so the department’s executive committee (ExCom) has taken the decision to revoke any excess carryover in all cases not covered by the department’s policy.

This means that any member of staff who has had an excess carryover of annual leave will have the reason for the carryover re-examined, and if the reason for the excess carryover is not covered by policy, then any carryover beyond 10 days will be lost.

PCS said it ‘had little notice of the department’s plans, but we quickly raised the concern that the department is planning to punish members of staff for the actions of their managers. The affected staff made the carryover request in good faith and have the right to expect any granted carryover to be honoured.

‘We have also raised the concern that there are question marks about the support those managers have received. HMRC have insisted that managers were given ample signposting to the policy and guidance; however, as of 20 November, the number of views for HMRC’s Policy Document HR2091, which sets out the Excess Leave Carryover policy, totalled only 172 in five months.

‘Given the tens of thousands of management grades in HMRC, such a low number of managers viewing the policy in five months, should have set alarm bells ringing for HMRC, where understanding of the policy is concerned.’

PCS added that ‘if the department does not want HMRC managers using a feature of the IT system, then do not make that feature of the system available to them’.

Union members are urged to contact the PCS so it can gather information on the scale of the issue.

‘PCS is considering our options on this matter; and as part of that, we will be going out to all our members in the department and looking to ascertain the precise scale of the problem (as well as any possible directorate/workplace patterns that might emerge), before taking our next steps,’ a PCS spokesperson said.