I have a Tribunal next week concerning C.A. which has been refused on the basis of the fact that the Appellant had his final wages paid during the lfirst week of the post-death 8-week run off period of the C.A. claim in respect of his late wife. This holiday pay took him over the £95, so he was not entitled to the 8-week period post bereavement. He had rec'd C.A. for the fortnight before this. The new fortnight in which his earnings are deemed to be over the £95 started 2 days after her death. He is therefore held to be "ceas to satisfy any other requirement not related to caring for a severely disabled person" .

The Secretary of State submits that holiday pay is to be treated as earnings and allocated to the period it is "due to be paid". I have tried to argue that holiday pay should be averaged out over the period it had been accumulated (eg. the working year), as opposed to when it was actually paid.

To me this seems to be down to the interpretation of the phrase "due to be paid". . Does this mean when it was actually paid, or might it be the case that the holiday pay might have been due to be paid before or after the period when the employer actually included it in the Appellant's wage-slip. Might this be a case of refusal of benefit based merely on when the employer decided to actually pay the holiday pay - as opposed to any more objective question of when it was really due?.

I don't know. Maybe I am wrong. Does anyone have any thoughts?.


John Colegate.

Regs 6 to 9 of the Social Security Benefit (Computation of Earnings) Regs, cover this. I think you may need a little more information about the holiday payment to decide if it has been treated correctly.