Editing Civil Service (United Kingdom) (section)

== Privilege days ==
A privilege day is a day of [[annual leave]] granted to employees of the civil service. These are in addition to [[bank holiday]]s.

Before 2013, there were 2.5 privilege days each year:<ref name="DFID FOI">{{cite web |date=9 January 2013 |title=FOI release: How many staff have a contracted day off for Christmas shopping? |url=https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-many-staff-have-a-contracted-day-off-for-christmas-shopping |access-date=17 December 2013 |publisher=[[Department for International Development]]}}</ref><ref name="OFT">{{cite web |title=Public and privilege holidays |url=http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/recruitment/Public.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120907075721/http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/recruitment/Public.pdf |archive-date=7 September 2012 |access-date=17 December 2013 |publisher=[[Office of Fair Trading]]}}</ref>

* '''[[King's Official Birthday|The King's Official Birthday]]'''. This is a full day usually attached to the Spring Bank Holiday, the last Monday in May, on either the Friday before the Bank Holiday or the Tuesday after (in order to create a four-day weekend), originally allocated in respect of the King's Official Birthday.<ref name="OFT" /> In practice, the day the privilege day is taken is subject to local management policies; many staff prefer to take it at a date of their own discretion.
* '''[[Maundy Thursday]]'''. This was a half day on the afternoon of the Thursday of [[Holy Week]].<ref name="OFT" />
* '''[[Christmas]]'''. This was an extra full day of leave at Christmas, in addition to the bank holidays of [[Christmas]] and [[Boxing Day]].  It was often arranged so as to connect the Christmas bank holidays to an adjacent weekend.<ref name="OFT" />

Since reforms by the Cabinet Office in 2013, the Maundy Thursday (Easter) and Christmas privilege days are no longer available for new civil servants. For civil servants who were in their positions when the changes came into force, these 1.5 days have been converted into additional annual leave, but lost upon promotion. Because the Queen's Birthday privilege day was granted by [[Elizabeth II|Queen Elizabeth II]] after her coronation, it would have been difficult for the Cabinet Office to abolish it by an administrative measure, so the Cabinet Office decided to retain this as a privilege day.<ref>{{cite news |author=Steven Swinford and Christopher Hope |date=26 October 2013 |title=Civil servants keep extra holidays despite mandarin's pledge |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|location=London |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10405996/Civil-servants-keep-extra-holidays-despite-mandarins-pledge.html |access-date=26 May 2015}}</ref> Privilege days still count as "working days" for the purpose of [[Freedom of information in the United Kingdom|freedom of information]] requests.<ref>{{cite web |date=24 February 2012 |title=Time-limit for responding |url=http://www.justice.gov.uk/information-access-rights/foi-guidance-for-practitioners/procedural-guidance/foi-time-limit |access-date=17 December 2013 |publisher=[[Ministry of Justice (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Justice]] |archive-date=26 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150526152602/http://www.justice.gov.uk/information-access-rights/foi-guidance-for-practitioners/procedural-guidance/foi-time-limit |url-status=dead }}</ref>