Public sector redundancy - continuous service?

PicklePickle

Hello,

Hoping someone can help. My fiance was given his redundancy notice yesterday. He works for a county council and previously before that worked for the NHS. His time at the NHS counts as continuous service on his HR record when it comes to annual leave entitlement etc but the figure he was given for his redundancy payment yesterday was only calculated from the date he started at the council and not his NHS start date, is this right?

Many thanks,
Pickle

Andy_L

Depends on the council contract but they can have different rules for leave & redundancy, generally (enhanced) redundancy is based on the pension scheme rules definition of service whilst leave is based on HR rules.
ISTR that the NHS has similiar, differing, rules

michelle1506

Hello,

Sorry to hear your news. I'm a full time public sector worker, so I understand how hard this must be

I have a feeling that this change has been bought about after the new civil service compensation scheme which came into force at the beginning of the year. I do know that whereas under the old scheme, it was possible to transfer time spent working at local government, to the public sector (eg. Dept of Work and Pensions), but under the new scheme it is NOT.

I expect then that it is no longer possible for time accrued while working for the public sector to be transferred onto time spent working for the local authority either.

I hope he finds alternative work soon. Unfair how us public sector workers are paying the price for other people's mistakes I think!!

Barnabylovesicecream

Was it TUPE. If so you need to find the original agreement and see what it says in there.

PicklePickle

Thank you for all the replies so far! It wasn't under a TUPE agreement that he moved jobs so that's no relevant i'm afraid. I've looked on our HR policies (i work for the same council) and the only thing I can see relating to redundancy pay and continuous service is this:

Statutory Redundancy Pay

The amount of statutory redundancy pay to which an employee is entitled depends on their age, length of service and pay. The entitlement is:
Half a week’s pay for each complete year of service up to age 21;
One and a half weeks’ pay for each complete year of service after age 41;
One week’s pay for each complete year of service between ages 22 and 40.

The maximum length of service taken into account to calculate a redundancy payment is 20 continuous years. An employee must have at least 2 continuous years of service to be entitled to a redundancy payment.

It doesn't define what the continuous service is though...

All a little bit stressful, I've got to reapply for my job too next month, so worst case scenario is we could both end up unemployed! Still, as events have reminded me today we still have each other, family, friends and our good health, those are the main things

aveylee

Bad news I am afraid.
What counts as Local Government continous service is determined by statute.
The rules can be found on the lge . gov . uk website (local Government employers).
But the bottom line is that NHS bodies (with one minor exception) are not 'Modification order' bodies, which means your fiance's service for redundancy only begins from when they joiunt the council.

firesidemaid

sorry to hike on this thread - but i have a question re nhs redundancy.

someone above said that redundancy was applied as per pension scheme/pensionable service.

does it have to be continuous service and what defines this? is there any break allowed in service?

many thanks.

OP, hope all goes well for you guys x

EconomicsGirl

Local councils are part of the Modification Order and service I believe counted as continous if it was with another Modification Order company with a break of under 28 days if there was a redundancy situation. The Civil Service is not part of Modification Order and different rules apply which I beleive are based on being part of the pension scheme. If you google Modification Order you can get a list of bodies - DCLG keeps the list.

With Modification Order companies if you get another job with one in 28 days you forfeit the redundancy payment but service is counted as continuous. After that there are no restrictions but check with your own employer.

Sorry to hear about your fiance - the redundancy payout isn't very good at all. I work for a Modification Order body but we are fortunate to be getting 1 month for each year plus 3 months notice though also only have 1 week in our contracts. Hope you get to keep your job and your fiance manages to find another job quickly.