Time off for public duties: the statutory list, and what counts as reasonable

An employee is sworn in as a magistrate and will need two days a month. Another is elected to a parish council. A third joins a school governing body and asks about the afternoon meetings. None of these is a request for a favour. Each touches a statutory right that is narrower than the summaries of it suggest.

This post reads it from the statute, because the list of offices and bodies is the whole substance of the right and the popular summaries drop entries from that list. It covers England, Wales and Scotland, the extent marked against the section on legislation.gov.uk. Northern Ireland has its own employment legislation. This is general information, not legal advice.

A request like this should leave a record: the dates asked for, the reasons weighed, the answer given. See how New Dynamics workflows route an approval and keep the decision attached to it.

What section 50 says

Section 50 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 has two limbs.

Subsection (1), in the form substituted on 1 October 2018 by The Time Off for Public Duties Order 2018 (S.I. 2018/665), covers office holders. "An employer shall permit an employee of his who is" a justice of the peace, or an independent prison monitor appointed under section 7B(2) of the Prisons (Scotland) Act 1989, "to take time off during the employee's working hours for the purpose of performing any of the duties of the office".

Subsection (2) covers members of listed bodies, and for them the time off is only for the purposes in subsection (3): "attendance at a meeting of the body or any of its committees or sub-committees", and "the doing of any other thing approved by the body, or anything of a class so approved, for the purpose of the discharge of the functions of the body".

That difference is almost always missed. A magistrate gets time off for the duties of the office. A body member gets it for meetings and for approved business, which is a tighter test. Subsection (11) adds that working hours are "any time when, in accordance with his contract of employment, the employee is required to be at work", so a meeting on a non-working day falls outside the right. legislation.gov.uk records the section as "up to date with all changes known to be in force on or before 07 November 2026".

The statutory list, which is the whole of the right

Subsection (2) covers an employee who is a member of:

• a local authority
• a statutory tribunal
• an independent monitoring board for a prison, or a prison visiting committee
• a relevant health body
• a relevant education body
• the Environment Agency or the Scottish Environment Protection Agency
• Scottish Water
• a panel of lay observers appointed under section 81(1)(b) of the Criminal Justice Act 1991
• a Visiting Committee appointed under section 152(1) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• a Visiting Committee appointed by the Secretary of State for a short-term holding facility

The last three were inserted on 1 October 2018 by the 2018 Order. Subsection (2)(c), "a police authority", was omitted on 22 November 2012, and subsection (10) lets the Secretary of State add, remove or alter any office or body by order.

Two entries in that list are defined further down the section, and both definitions change the answer.

A local authority, under subsection (5), means a local authority within the meaning of the Local Government Act 1972, a council constituted under section 2 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994, the Common Council of the City of London, a National Park authority, or the Broads Authority. Section 270(1) of the 1972 Act in turn defines "local authority" as "a county council, a district council, a London borough council or a parish council but, in relation to Wales, means a county council, county borough council or community council". Parish and community councillors are therefore inside section 50.

A relevant education body, under subsection (9), starts with "a managing or governing body of an educational establishment maintained by a local authority (as defined in section 579(1) of the Education Act 1996)", then "a further education corporation, sixth form college corporation or higher education corporation", followed by Scottish bodies and the General Teaching Council for Wales. So the test for a governor is whether the establishment is maintained by a local authority. Academy trusts and independent schools are not named.

Magistrate, governor, councillor, tribunal member

Answering each from the list rather than from general belief:

• A magistrate. Inside, under subsection (1)(a), "a justice of the peace", with time off for any of the duties of the office.
• A councillor. Inside, under subsection (2)(a), if the council is one of the five kinds of body in subsection (5), which includes parish and community councils.
• A school governor. Inside, under subsection (2)(f), where the governing body is that of an establishment maintained by a local authority, or one of the corporations in subsection (9)(b).
• A tribunal member. Inside, under subsection (2)(b), "a statutory tribunal". GOV.UK gives an employment tribunal as its example.

Unpaid unless the contract says otherwise

Section 50 says nothing about money. Read it through: there is no payment provision, and no companion section supplies one. That is the whole answer to the commonest question about this right.

GOV.UK states it in one line on its time off work for public duties guidance: "Employers can choose to pay them for this time, but they do not have to."

So the default is unpaid. A promise of paid time in a contract, handbook or collective agreement is contractual and enforceable as a contract term. Many public sector employers offer a set number of paid days. The statute does not.

How much time off is reasonable

Subsection (4) sets the test. The amount, "and the occasions on which and any conditions subject to which time off may be so taken, are those that are reasonable in all the circumstances having regard, in particular, to" three things:

1. how much time off the duties of the office or membership require, and how much the particular duty requires
2. how much time off the employee has already been permitted under section 50, or under sections 168 and 170 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992
3. the circumstances of the employer's business and the effect of the employee's absence on the running of that business

No figure appears in the statute and none anywhere official, so nobody publishes a lawful minimum number of days. The second factor deserves a note, because time already taken for trade union duties counts against what is reasonable for public duties.

Where GOV.UK and the statute do not match

The GOV.UK list is the one most employers find first, and it does not match section 50. The page's own structured data gives a last-modified date of 10 March 2017, before the 2018 Order.

GOV.UK lists "a member of Scottish Water or a Water Customer Consultation Panel". The statute read exactly that until 28 October 2011, when words in subsection (2)(h) were omitted by The Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 (Consequential Modifications of Enactments) Order 2011 (S.I. 2011/2581). The live text is "Scottish Water" alone.

GOV.UK also lists "a trade union member (for trade union duties)" among those entitled to time off for public duties. Trade union duties are not in section 50 at all. The list stops short of the three 2018 entries too, and omits National Park authorities, the Broads Authority and the Common Council of the City of London.

Where the two differ, the statute governs. GOV.UK guidance summarises the law, it does not change it.

Who is outside, and is it a day-one right?

The right belongs to an employee, so status is the first question. Two exclusions sit in the Act. Section 200 provides that sections "50 to 57B" and others "do not apply to employment under a contract of employment in police service", and section 192 lists the provisions that apply to armed forces service, where section 50 does not appear. GOV.UK adds agency workers, seafarers and offshore workers, and "civil servants, if their public duties are connected to political activities restricted under their terms of their employment".

It is a day-one right. Section 50 sets no qualifying period of continuous employment, and nor does section 51. Dismissal is separate: section 104 makes a dismissal automatically unfair where the reason is that the employee enforced or alleged the infringement of a relevant statutory right, defined to include any right under the Act whose remedy is a tribunal complaint, and section 108(3)(g) removes the two year qualifying period for such a claim.

If an employer unreasonably refuses

Section 51 is the remedy: "An employee may present a complaint to an employment tribunal that his employer has failed to permit him to take time off as required by section 50."

The time limit changed recently. Subsection (2)(a) now requires the complaint to be presented "before the end of the period of six months beginning with the date on which the failure occurred", or within such further period as the tribunal considers reasonable where it was not reasonably practicable to present it in time. "Six" replaced "three" on 1 October 2026 under Schedule 12 to the Employment Rights Act 2025, commenced by regulation 3 of The Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 5 and Transitional Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026. Regulation 4 keeps the old three month limit where the relevant date, for this claim the date of the failure complained of, falls before 1 October 2026. Subsection (2A) applies the Acas early conciliation extension in section 207B.

If the complaint is well-founded, subsection (3) says the tribunal "shall make a declaration to that effect" and "may make an award of compensation to be paid by the employer to the employee". Compensation is "such as the tribunal considers just and equitable in all the circumstances", having regard to the employer's default and to any loss the employee sustained. There is no cap and no tariff, and because the time off is unpaid there may be little financial loss to compensate, so the declaration can be the main outcome.

GOV.UK mentions only the internal route, saying employees "can raise a grievance if they feel that employers are not allowing them to take enough time off for public duties". The grievance is a sensible first step, but the clock runs from the failure, not from the end of it.

Jury service and trade union duties are separate rights

Both get filed under public duties, and neither is in section 50.

Jury service comes from a court summons rather than a right to time off, so the Act protects the absence instead of granting it. Section 43M gives an employee the right not to suffer a detriment for being summoned or for being absent because of it, and section 98B makes a dismissal for that reason automatically unfair. GOV.UK is blunt: employers "cannot refuse their staff time off to do jury service". The GOV.UK jury service guidance covers deferral and the loss of earnings allowance.

Trade union duties sit in sections 168 to 170 of the 1992 Act, and the headline difference is pay. Section 169(1) provides that an employer who permits time off under section 168 "shall pay him for the time taken off pursuant to the permission".

For how this sits alongside your other absence categories, see our post on leave of absence.

Frequently asked questions

Is time off for public duties paid?

Not by law. Section 50 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 creates a right to the time and says nothing about pay. GOV.UK states that employers can choose to pay staff for time taken off, but they do not have to. A promise of paid time in a contract or handbook is contractual and can be enforced as a contract term.

How much time off for public duties is an employee entitled to?

Whatever is reasonable in all the circumstances. Section 50(4) names three factors: the time the duties and the particular duty require, the time already taken under section 50 or for trade union duties, and the employer's business and the effect of the absence on running it. No official source publishes a minimum number of days.

Does a school governor get time off work?

Yes, where the governing body falls inside section 50(9). The first entry is a governing body of an establishment maintained by a local authority, and the second covers further education, sixth form college and higher education corporations. Academy trusts and independent schools are not named, so check which kind of body the school is.

What if time off for public duties is refused?

Raise it internally, then consider a complaint to an employment tribunal under section 51. For a failure on or after 1 October 2026 it must be presented within six months of the date the failure occurred, with the Acas early conciliation extension available. A successful claim brings a declaration, and the tribunal may award compensation it considers just and equitable.

Your next step: write the policy before the request arrives

1. Take the statutory list and write your own version of it, naming the offices and bodies your workforce actually holds, with the subsection beside each.
2. Decide and record whether you pay for this time, and how many days if so. Silence is read as unpaid, the statutory default, but it is the first thing employees ask.
3. Set out how much notice you want, and what evidence of the appointment you want once rather than every time.
4. Write down how you weigh the three section 50(4) factors, so two managers reach the same answer and a refusal carries reasons.
5. Record every request, decision and reason in one place, because what a tribunal weighs is what was reasonable at the time.

For the wording around this and your other leave categories, read and download our employee handbook guide.

Want requests, decisions and reasons recorded in one place rather than rebuilt from email? Book a New Dynamics demo and bring your current absence policy. You can also email contact@new-dynamics.com.