Absence and Pay

Holidays

The University believes that it is important for all employees to balance their work and personal lives. We therefore provide a number of paid annual leave days, public holidays and closure days for the purpose of providing extended periods of time during which employees can take a break from work, and then return to their jobs refreshed.

For further information on the University's holiday entitlement please see the Annual leave, public holidays and closure days page. 

Sick Pay Entitlement

Depending on length of service a member of staff is entitled to receive full pay, subject to deduction of SSP and / or state sickness benefit and on the production of medical certificates, for a period of six months in a rolling twelve months while absent on sick leave. For continued absence after six months, staff are entitled to six months half pay. However no combination of half pay plus benefit or SSP should exceed full pay. In those cases, half pay will be reduced accordingly. Please refer to your contract of employment. 

Reporting Sickness

Where a member of staff is unable to attend work due to unforeseen circumstances, the member of staff is required to contact his / her line manager on the first day of absence before or as close to his / her start time as possible.

Only in exceptional circumstances should a relative or friend telephone if the member of staff is not able to do so him/herself. It is not acceptable to leave messages reporting absence with telephonists or anyone else.

Each School and Department should have a designated person to whom absence is reported for recording purposes. It is the responsibility of individual line managers to ensure that all of their staff understand and follow the absence reporting procedure.

For full details please the Sickness Absence page and Absence Reporting Procedure
(PDF - 80KB).