holiday-plan

---
name: holiday-plan
description: Turns everyone's remaining holiday entitlement, the weeks they want off and who can actually cover their section into a published summer grid, with the rules written down before any request is read and a reason recorded against every refusal. Use before the requests start arriving, not after two people have already booked the same fortnight.
---

# Cover the summer without a row

You give me the leave year, who works for you and on what pattern, what holiday each person has already taken, and the weeks they want. You get back what each person is genuinely owed and how much is left, the rules that will be used to decide, ranked requests with a tie break written before any name was read, a week by week grid showing exactly who is off and who is covering each section, the requests that cannot be granted with the reason and the alternative offered, and the notice letters in the wording the law expects.

## What it does

1. **Fix the leave year and stop guessing at entitlement.** Write the leave year start and end date at the top, because every calculation below is against it. GOV.UK states that "Almost all people classed as workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks' paid holiday a year" and that "Statutory paid holiday entitlement is limited to 28 days", with the example that "staff working 6 days a week are only entitled to 28 days' paid holiday". Part-timers scale rather than losing out: "Part-time workers who work regular hours for the whole year are entitled to at least 5.6 weeks' paid holiday, but this will amount to fewer than 28 days", so somebody on three days a week gets "at least 16.8 days' leave a year (3 × 5.6)". Note also what is not automatic: "Bank or public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave", though an employer can choose to include them inside the 5.6 weeks. Whichever you do, write which one you do, because it is the most common source of a January argument.

2. **Do irregular hours and part-year workers separately, with the accrual method rather than a headcount.** These are most of a hospitality team and the rules for them changed. GOV.UK defines an irregular hours worker as one where "the number of paid hours that they will work in each pay period during the term of their contract in that year is, under the terms of their contract, wholly or mostly variable", and a part-year worker as someone required to work only part of the year with periods "of at least a week which they are not required to work and for which they are not paid". For leave years from 1 April 2024, entitlement accrues at "12.07% of actual hours worked in a pay period", worked out by dividing hours worked by 100, multiplying by 12.07, and rounding to the nearest hour. The figure is not arbitrary: it is 5.6 weeks of leave divided by 46.4 working weeks. Run this per person, per pay period, from payroll hours rather than from the rota, and show the working, because this is the number a worker is most likely to query and the one a manager is least likely to be able to explain.

3. **Count what is already gone before you open a single request.** For each person: entitlement for the year, days or hours taken so far with dates, days or hours already booked and approved for later in the year, and the balance. Do this from the records rather than from memory. Two things fall out of it immediately and both need acting on now rather than in November. First, anyone whose balance is large enough that they cannot physically take it in the weeks remaining, because Acas is clear that "An employer cannot refuse to let workers take any holiday at all. By law, an employer must make sure workers can take the amount of holiday they're entitled to during the year." Second, anyone whose balance is already negative because they have been paid holiday they had not yet accrued, which is a payroll conversation and not a rota one.

4. **Write the rules down before you read any request, and publish them.** How many people can be off at once, per section and in total. The maximum consecutive weeks one person can take. Any closed period, and the reason for it. How ties are broken when two people want the same fortnight. Acas's advice on managing holiday is to "communicate clearly and early with workers about any rules or restrictions on holiday" and to be "open, fair and consistent". The tie break is the part that has to be decided while it is still abstract. Write it as a rule, for example: requests received in the window are ranked by whether the person got their first choice last year, then by who has taken least holiday so far this year, then by date received. Rules invented after a manager has read two names and knows which one they would rather upset are not rules, and everybody in the building can tell the difference.

5. **Put the statutory notice periods into the rules, because they cut both ways.** Acas sets them out plainly: "Workers must ask for holiday at least twice the number of days before as the amount they want to take off", so a two week holiday needs four weeks' notice. If you refuse or cancel, "They must let the worker know beforehand by at least the same amount of time as the amount they requested", so refusing a two week request needs two weeks' notice. And if you want to require holiday to be taken, for example a closure week, "the employer must tell workers at least twice as many calendar days before as the number of days" you want them to take. These periods come from regulation 15 of the Working Time Regulations 1998 and can be varied by a relevant agreement, so check whether your contracts say something different before you rely on the default.

6. **Open one window, close it, then decide everything at once.** A fixed two week window, a date it closes, and nothing decided until it does. Deciding requests as they land rewards whoever asks first rather than whoever needs it most, and it is how one person ends up with the August fortnight for the fourth year running. When the window closes, apply the rules from step 4 in order and record the rank against every request. Anything that arrives after the window is handled first come first served against whatever capacity is left, and say that in the published rules so that it is a known consequence rather than a punishment.

7. **Map cover by who can actually run the section, not by headcount.** A week where four people are off is fine if none of them is the only person who can run the grill. Build a small matrix: each section down the side, each person across the top, and a mark where that person can hold that section unsupervised on a busy night. Then test each proposed week against it. The weeks that break are almost never the weeks with the most people off; they are the weeks where the one cellar-trained person and the one opener are away together. Where the matrix shows a single point of failure, the answer is usually to train someone before the summer rather than to refuse the holiday, and that is a decision worth taking in February.

8. **Handle carry-over deliberately rather than letting it happen.** Acas states that "Workers can carry over some of their statutory 5.6 weeks' holiday entitlement if there's a relevant agreement that allows it", and that where an employer has failed to encourage workers to take their holiday or to tell them they will lose untaken days, the worker may carry over "a maximum of 4 weeks' holiday entitlement". For the extra 1.6 weeks, "Their contract should say if they can carry over any of this holiday and how much." Long term sickness carries its own rule: a maximum of four weeks, which "must use it within 18 months starting from the end of the leave year in which they accrued it", and workers on statutory leave such as maternity "must be allowed to carry the holiday over to the next leave year". GOV.UK's reform guidance adds that irregular hours and part-year workers may "carry over a maximum of 8 days into the next leave year, with the agreement of their employer". Write which of these applies to each person with a balance left at year end, and send the encouragement in writing in good time, because the encouragement is the part that protects you.

9. **Publish the grid, the reasons and the notices on the same day.** One grid, week by week, showing who is off and who is covering each section, visible to everyone. Beside it, the list of refusals, each with the rule that produced it and the alternative weeks offered. Then issue the notices: approvals confirmed in writing with the dates and the deducted balance, refusals in writing within the notice period from step 5, and any required leave notified at twice the length of the period. Publishing the refusals alongside the grants is the part managers flinch at and the part that stops the row, because the objection is almost never to being refused, it is to suspecting the reason.

## Then it checks

1. The leave year dates are stated, and the output says explicitly whether bank holidays are counted inside the 5.6 weeks or given on top.
2. Every worker has an entitlement figure with the method named beside it, and every irregular hours or part-year worker shows the 12.07% calculation from actual hours worked, with the hours source stated.
3. Every worker shows taken, already booked and remaining, taken from records rather than recollection, and anyone whose remaining balance cannot fit in the weeks left is flagged by name with a proposed date.
4. The decision rules and the tie break were written and dated before the request window closed, and each request carries the rank the rules produced rather than a manager's note.
5. Every week of the plan passes the cover matrix, with each section showing at least one person present who can hold it unsupervised, and any week that fails is listed with the named single point of failure.
6. Every refusal has a written reason, an alternative offered, and a notice date at least as many days before the requested start as the length of the leave requested, and every required leave notice is at least twice the length of the period being required.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never state a worker's entitlement without naming the method used to get it and the hours or days it came from. An entitlement figure with no working behind it cannot be defended when it is queried, and the query always comes in the week the person wanted off.
- Never change the tie break rule after the requests have been read. If the rule produces an outcome you do not like, say so out loud, keep the outcome or overrule it openly with a written reason, and fix the rule for next year. A quietly rewritten rule costs more trust than an unpopular decision.
- Never refuse a holiday request without giving the required notice and an alternative, and never refuse so much that a worker cannot take their entitlement within the leave year. The duty to make the leave possible sits with the employer, and a balance nobody could ever have taken is the employer's problem, not the worker's.
- Never use this to calculate holiday pay. This plans who is off and when. What they are paid for that week, particularly where tips, overtime or commission are involved, is a separate calculation for payroll and the owner's accountant.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner's HR adviser, accountant or solicitor to check before it is used. It is not employment law advice and it does not determine anyone's statutory entitlement.

## Built from
- GOV.UK, "Holiday entitlement", https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights, read 14 September 2026, no publication date shown on the page: the 5.6 weeks entitlement, the 28 day cap, the scaling for part-time workers with the 3 × 5.6 worked example, and the position on bank holidays, which set step 1.
- GOV.UK, "Holiday pay and entitlement reforms from 1 January 2024", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/simplifying-holiday-entitlement-and-holiday-pay-calculations/holiday-pay-and-entitlement-reforms-from-1-january-2024, last updated 1 April 2024, read 14 September 2026: the definitions of irregular hours worker and part-year worker, the 12.07% accrual method and the arithmetic behind it, the rolled-up holiday pay rules, and the eight day carry-over for these workers, which set step 2 and part of step 8.
- Acas, "Asking for and taking holiday", https://www.acas.org.uk/checking-holiday-entitlement/asking-for-and-taking-holiday, last updated 3 June 2026, read 14 September 2026: the three notice periods, the rule that an employer cannot refuse all holiday, and the advice to communicate restrictions clearly and early, which shaped steps 3, 4, 5 and 9.
- Acas, "Carrying over holiday", https://www.acas.org.uk/checking-holiday-entitlement/carrying-over-holiday, last updated 3 June 2026, read 14 September 2026: the relevant agreement requirement, the four week carry-over where the employer failed to encourage leave, the 18 month long term sickness rule and the family leave position, which is step 8.
- The Working Time Regulations 1998, regulation 15, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833/regulation/15/made, read 14 September 2026: the statutory source of the notice formulas, including that a worker's notice must be "twice as many days in advance of the earliest day specified in the notice as the number of days or part-days to which the notice relates", and that these may be varied by a relevant agreement, which is why step 5 tells the owner to check their own contracts first.

# Build the summer holiday grid and the notice letters - Codex task

## You are given

- `{LEAVE_YEAR}` - start date, end date, and `bank_holidays_included` as yes or no.
- `{WORKERS}` - one line each: `name | fixed or irregular | days per week (fixed) | hours worked this leave year (irregular) | taken so far | approved future days | sections they can run unsupervised`.
- `{REQUESTS}` - one line each: `name | start date | end date | days requested | date received | got first choice last year (yes/no)`.
- `{RULES}` - `max off at once`, `max off per section`, `max consecutive weeks`, any `closed period`, and the tie break as an ordered list.
- `{SECTIONS}` - the sections that must be covered every trading week.
- `{PLAN_PERIOD}` - the first and last week the grid covers.

## Produce

1. `entitlement.csv` - columns exactly: `name,pattern,method,entitlement,taken,approved_future,remaining,working`. Fixed: `method` is `days per week x 5.6`, `working` shows it. Irregular: `method` is `12.07% of hours worked`, `working` shows `hours / 100 * 12.07` rounded to the nearest hour. Never leave `working` empty.
2. `decisions.csv` - columns exactly: `rank,name,start,end,days,outcome,rule_applied,tie_break_step,notice_required_days,notice_deadline,alternative_offered`. Rank by the `{RULES}` tie break in order. `outcome` is `granted` or `refused`. On a refusal, `notice_required_days` equals `days` and `alternative_offered` names real dates from a week with spare capacity.
3. `grid.csv` - one row per week in `{PLAN_PERIOD}`; columns `week_commencing`, one per section, then `people_off` and `total_off`. Each section cell lists the names present that week who can run it. An empty cell reads `UNCOVERED`.
4. `notices/` - one plain text file per request, named `<name>-<start date>.txt`. Granted: dates, days deducted, remaining balance. Refused: dates, rule applied, alternative offered, and the date the notice must be sent by. No legal opinion in any file.
5. `gaps.md` - numbered list: every `UNCOVERED` cell with week and section; any worker whose `remaining` cannot fit in the weeks left in `{LEAVE_YEAR}`; any request whose notice deadline has passed; any negative `remaining`; any section only one person can run.

## Rules

- Never invent a name, date, hours figure or section. Anything missing goes to `gaps.md`.
- Apply `{RULES}` exactly as given. Never re-rank on judgement.
- Never calculate or mention holiday pay, pay rates or rolled-up holiday pay.
- Never write that a decision is lawful, fair or compliant.
- Dates as DD Month YYYY. No currency anywhere. British English. No em dash characters.
- Do not delete or rewrite any input file.

## Return

Print, in this order: every file path created; the number of workers and requests read; granted and refused counts; the number of `UNCOVERED` cells and the weeks they fall in; any request whose notice deadline has passed; the `gaps.md` item count. Then print `entitlement.csv` and `grid.csv` in full.