We are pleased to announce a new and improved additional leave purchase scheme. Whether you would like to take longer holidays, travel abroad or complete a project just for you, this benefit enables you to make life that little bit more exciting.
Colleagues can purchase up to 5 days additional leave and pay for this via salary sacrifice.
This scheme is currently open to Professional Services colleagues at any level or grade.
You must either be employed on a permanent contract or on a fixed term basis for at least 12 months from the date the arrangement would come into effect.
Requests are subject to line management approval. We therefore advise discussing the amount of leave you wish to purchase, and when you wish to take it in advance of making a formal request.
Please note - it may not always be possible for your manager to approve your request or the total amount of leave you wish to purchase. They need to balance your wishes with the operational needs of the role and the team.
Your line manager should provide you with feedback as to why they are unable to approve your request.
We encourage line managers to approve requests to purchase additional leave where it is operationally possible, but they do need to be mindful of the workload of other team members.
A salary sacrifice agreement will be applied to help you spread the cost of your additional leave over a 12 month period. This will commence from the date that the arrangement is agreed in the system.
The cost of the additional leave will be taken from your monthly pay prior to standard deductions i.e. tax and National Insurance.
To support staff to reasonably make payments and to ensure that pay is not reduced below the National Minimum Wage, Oxford Brookes may limit the purchase amount available.
The People Operations Team will be in touch with you to discuss this where applicable.
We will work out an hourly rate on the basis of 260 working days per year and a working day of 7.4 hours. We will then deduct the equivalent pay for 7.4 hours x the number of days you wish to purchase.
The cost is calculated as follows:
Annual salary ÷ 52 (weeks per year) ÷ number of hours worked per week = hourly rate.
For full time staff, a working week consists of 37 hours and a working day, 7.4 hours.
The hourly rate is then multiplied by the number of hours leave you wish to purchase. For full time staff, this may be up to 37 hours or 5 days.
As payment will be deducted over a 12 month period, the total cost will then be divided by 12.
Our additional annual leave calculator can be used to identify both the total cost and monthly payment for both full and part time colleagues.
An individual’s full-time salary is Grade 9, point 32 or £39,347.
3 additional leave days are purchased, totalling 22.2 hours, at a cost of £453.99.
The purchase of additional leave in this scenario would cost £36.35 per month over a 12 month period.
Salary sacrifice is an agreement with Oxford Brookes to exchange part of your pre-tax salary for a non-cash benefit. You will therefore benefit from a small Tax and National Insurance saving.
No, purchasing additional annual leave will not affect your pension contributions.
Staff are responsible for researching the impact of the scheme on their financial circumstances, prior to entering any agreement.
To ensure that staff can access this benefit as and when needed, requests to purchase leave can be made at any time.
Regardless of when a request is submitted, repayment will be spread across a 12 month period and is not linked to the annual leave year.
Please access the People XD portal and complete the request form to purchase up to 5 additional leave days. Please refer to the guidance notes which explains how to access this within the system.
Your Line Manager will receive your request and discuss this in further detail with you.
If approved, your request will be sent to our Payroll and People Operations teams to review and process.
You will receive written confirmation of the amount of leave purchased, the total and monthly cost, and the payment period.
Prior to indicating that you agree to the terms and conditions within the request form, please ensure that you have carefully read the information provided on this webpage.
Yes. If however you have not used all of your additional leave prior to the end of the leave year (31 August), please inform your line manager.
No, you should reapply each year, so that you and your line manager can reassess whether your request can be accommodated.
We are only able to consider one request per every 12 months and therefore ask that you carefully consider the amount of leave required.
Depending on circumstances and the outstanding balance of leave purchased, we may be able to consider increasing the number of days initially applied for.
Please note that any further leave requested will be subject to line manager agreement and will need to be repaid within the original 12 month window.
To discuss this in further detail and to request to increase the amount of leave purchased, please contact pdteam-operations@brookes.ac.uk.
No. Once your application has been approved, you are unable to sell leave back to Oxford Brookes.
No, we therefore recommend carefully considering the amount of leave purchased.
Once you have agreed to a salary sacrifice arrangement and have used the additional leave purchased, you do not have the option to revert back to your original salary until the agreement has ended.
Please contact the Reward and Progression Partner at payandreward@brookes.ac.uk if you are experiencing difficulties, and would like to discuss payment in further detail.
The monthly repayment agreed within your confirmation letter will continue to be applied i.e. the cost of your additional annual leave will not change.
You will still need to pay for the additional leave purchased if this has been taken in full, and there is an outstanding balance.
We will review the amount of leave taken, the length of the agreement, and the balance outstanding in order to calculate a final payment. This payment will be taken in full from your final payslip.
For example, if you have purchased 3 days, but have only used 2 days, the final payment will be calculated based on what has been used, rather than the full amount purchased.
The process and calculation applied in the event of resignation is also applicable if you agree to Voluntary Severance.