Redundancy - advice needed!

Scaramanga73

Hi all

Long time reader first time poster.

On Dec 15th I was made redundant from my company after 9 and a half years service. The part of the company I worked for went into administration and I received a phone call on the 15th to say my job (and 30 others!) was gone effective immediate with no notice. I went in the next day to see the administrators and fill in the forms and was told that I could claim from the Government for:

9 weeks pay (redundancy)
9 weeks notice period
10 days unpaid salary
7 days untaken holiday
30 days for the missed consultancy period

After a week or so I received a letter from the owner of the company offering me £950 as a "loss of office" payment....when I queried his PA as to what this meant I was told by email that this a goodwill gesture and a thankyou payment for the work I did in december. They also mentioned that this would not affect my claim from the insolvency service.

On the 29th Jan I received a letter from The Insolvency service detailing the payments I would be getting. They listed the unpaid wages and holiday pay (less tax of course!) and the 9 years service at £380 (max allowed!).

The Insolvency Service calculated 9 x £380 to be £2420 ???, when I called em to ask where the other £950 was they said they had taken off the money I was paid by the owner.

My first question is that if I had an email from my old company saying that their payment to me was a "goodwill gesture and thankyou payment which wouldn't affect my claim in any way"...... why is it taken off of my redundancy money and why is it affecting my claim?

My second question is that after being laid off I went out and got another massively better paid job (double:)) within 3 days..... how will this affect my claims for loss of notice and consultancy periods?

Any help in this will greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Mischa

I'm not sure if this guide I just found is of any use http://www.legalcentre.co.uk/employment/arts/an-overview-of-the-redundancy-process/ but if you have copies of the email your employer sent to you can you not send a copy of this to the Insolvecnt Service with a covering letter? If not I think you should seek legal advice, just to make sure that nothing untoward is taking place. Congrats on the better job, that's fantastic news! :-)

Scaramanga73

Hi Mischa

Thanks for the advice.... have forwarded the email to the insolvency service in support of my complaint.
What I was wondering though is can my old employer just say that this email was incorrect and to ignore it (ie bye bye £950) or do they have to stick to what they explained to me and I get my missing payout?
Also, the consultation period (protective award?) hasn't even been mentioned by both my old employer and the government.... is it a case of wait and see?