It’s a sad reality of life in the United Kingdom these days that redundancy is no longer a rare event and experts are predicting that the number of redundancies in the UK will rise sharply as the credit crunch continues to bite.

If you are an employer, the last thing you want to do is make a bad situation worse for you staff or for yourself so to help keep you right, we’ll be making a series of posts here on our blog over the next few weeks aimed at providing introductory guidance on handling redundancies within an organisation.

So what is redundancy?  A genuine redundancy only arises when either there has been, or is going to be:

• a cessation of business
• a cessation of business at the employee’s site
• a reduction or cessation of work.

The main legislation governing redundancy is noted below but its important to note that both statute and case law determine redundancy obligations and rights.

The main legislation governing redundancy is:

• The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992
• The Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1995 (SI 1995/2587)
• The Employment Rights Act 1996
• The Collective Redundancies and the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (Amendment) Regulations 1999 (SI 1999/1925)
• The Collective Redundancies (Amendment) Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/2387).
• The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 which came into force on 1 October 2006 have also affected redundancy, for example, by removing the previous upper and lower age limits (of 65 and 18 respectively) for statutory redundancy payments.

The existing age bands used to calculate statutory redundancy pay are unaffected.

At the very least in order to plan and implement a redundancy situation properly  businesses should establish a formal procedure on redundancy whenever possible.

Next week we’ll cover the key stages employers should follow……….if you need any additional information about redundancy law and/or processes contact us today and we’ll be happy to help!