Hi Emmzzi - Thankyou for your advice. I think they will just end up replacing the agency rep on site as in 4 years this is the 3rd agency- he's i think the 4th in the past 18 months alone... Apparently he's going to email his boss to see if they can have an extention on end of year holiday deadline, to accomadate for everyone - it is either that or cost to them on finding staff. Eitherway i think i have a little more clarity over the situation plus ive been reading up on the CAB website which does give me alot to throw back if my manager gets arsey, seeing as it is left upto me to manage staff and sort things out Very much appreciated Many thanks.

Emmzii - unfortunately it doesnt work like that here, the nature of the business is not your average wearhouse. We cant just find extra bodies on a whim - they have to all be vetted and there is some 50 odd pages worth of documentation to sign before your even allowed on site - for which you need security clearence for ( CRB/scotish disclosure) the job itself would take 2 weeks to learn upto standard, even if i had the bodies tomorrow. I just need to know what the law is in regards to holidays, could i have refused etc even though the cut off is feb the 16th?

Hi All, Im new here for starters so hey go easy I have an issue within my work place, its in regards to 'my' agency staff - or the ones which work for me on the shift i run. So i run a shift monday to friday after hours its a 7 hour shift with a 20 min break inbetween- im the supervisor of the shift and i have 16 bodies under my control to manage the business. The issue is for the past couple of weeks ive been asking their onsite 'account specialist' for the holiday balence, because they acrew holiday and i needed to know to get them all to take them. So their holiday year runs from February, and they have a 2 week grace period to take their entitlement, they are not allowed to carry them over, get paid for them etc so its a case of use them or lose them. ( i got the balence sheet on monday - yesterday) now im between a hard place and a rock because i have 16 staff who all want to use what they acrrewed which would be 32 days but only 9 days to use them in im only allowed 2 people off per day it doesnt add up. yesterday i terned round and said ok, i'll allow a maximum of 3 people off per day to make it fair and allow everyone time off. however my manager was really really unhappy with this decision, because operationally we wont hit our targets, which will cause a loss of revenue: which looks bad for me: my manager also pointed out i should of put business needs before that of the employee's in other words, its a case of tough luck not everyone gets their holidays. ( which to me is really unfair.) Im currently in the process of having to write an email to him, so he can send that to the site manager and then to the site managers boss ( the people you only ever see when its s**t creek and they are angry haha) i just want to make it proof enough so essentially ive said the right things and made the right decision. Thankyou, Ben.