Redundancy Policy and Procedure - January 2024

General principles

Compensation payments will be made in accordance with the statutory provisions, Local Government Compensation Regulations and Employers’ Discretionary policies in force at the time. Discretionary policies do not infer contractual rights and are subject to change at any time.

Redundant employees will serve a notice period in accordance with their contractual rights or statutory entitlement if that is greater, although this entitlement to notice may be waived by the employee concerned. Only in cases where operational considerations make it impractical for notice to be served will pay in lieu of notice be payable.

A Business Case must always be submitted in accordance with the agreed procedure. (See Retirement, Severance & Redundancy Business Case Guidelines).

Where possible, volunteers for redundancy will be sought in the first instance. However, the Authority reserves the right to apply selection criteria if particular skills and knowledge must be retained or if the number of volunteers exceeds the number of redundant posts.

The recognised Trade Unions will be consulted at all stages of this procedure. If 20 or more employees are facing redundancy within a 90-day period at one establishment then collective consultation will apply.

Employees who are absent from work for whatever reason but particularly when on maternity, adoption, additional paternity leave, shared parental leave or due to long term illness must be kept informed at all stages of this procedure and given the same information and opportunities as other affected employees.

Employees have the right to be accompanied by a recognised trade union official or work colleague at all formal stages of this procedure.

Managers must consider disabled employees’ needs during the process and make reasonable adjustments as necessary.

Example: A Manager manages a team of 20 employees, one of whom is partially sighted. When consulting with their team regarding possible redundancies, the manager should take this into account and ensure that all written communication is accessible to the employee either by providing audio information, setting up a meeting with the employee to go through all the written information with them, or any other suitable method of communication.