Redundancy consultation and then no conclusion or communication for weeks?

Flybaby

Hi,

Does anyone know if there is any legal requirement to communicate with furloughed workers about the result of a proposed redundancy following consultation?

Summary of issue -  the company is events based and in early May the employees (40 or so) were all told they would be made redundant as the company was going to close due to the COVID pandemic. Director pushed through election of employee reps, collective consultation and individual consultation meetings asap within three weeks and he mentioned that he wanted to complete the consultation process by June 12th (which was the 30 day minimum required) and everyone expected to receive redundancy notifications at that date as director made it quite clear that company had no chance of survival.

Since the end of may and the individual consultations ( all done via zoom calls), no employee has heard anything about whether or not they will be made redundant or not , all staff continue to be furloughed and everyone is starting to tear their hair out with the stress of not knowing.

Staff were told they were at risk of redundancy and put through the consultation verbally, but essentially not given the results of the consultation and are left not knowing if they are going to be made redundant or not - they can't start looking for new jobs as they can't officially accept a new job without resigning and therfore losing redundancy ( most staff over 15 years service).

Staff members who have asked about whether the redundacies are happening or not and if the company is closing or not have been told, essentially to !!!!!! off and if they don't like it, to resign ( all by very short email communication from director and not unexpected or unusual as management attitude to staff is normally bad). No one can figure out why the directors would be dragging the process out when they had seemed so keen to get it all done and dusted so quickly at the beginning. Most staff would absolutely love it if a way to save the company has been found and they are not going to be made redundant, despite the bad management.

I know there is no maximum length of time for redundancy to go on for, however in normal circumstances, a company would usually be keeping staff informed throughout the process and the company is getting away with avoiding any communications with staff as the office is closed and staff are furloughed.

Essentailly I am asking  if anyone knows of any legal requirement for the company/employer to provide results of redundancy consultation to work force ?

or any legal requirement to maintin communications with staff during the process? that we might be able to use to persuade the employer to be more honest and open about what is going on? Staff appreciate they are lucky to still be on Furlough, but stress of not hearing anything for 7 weeks is starting to get to people.

Many thanks for any information or thoughts

Jeremy535897

Presumably you have looked at https://www.gov.uk/staff-redundant/redundancy-consultations

Thrugelmir

Management will be exploring all options. While the furlough scheme is in place they can defer decisions. Which ultimately is the aim of the scheme. At the end of the month you'll know what the future holds. At least the Government will pick up your redundancy pay , holiday pay etc. Being on furlough will have increased the payouts individuals will be receiving. 

Jeremy535897

Thrugelmir said:

Management will be exploring all options. While the furlough scheme is in place they can defer decisions. Which ultimately is the aim of the scheme. At the end of the month you'll know what the future holds. At least the Government will pick up your redundancy pay , holiday pay etc. Being on furlough will have increased the payouts individuals will be receiving. 

Their period of service may have increased, but if their contracts of employment have been amended to reduce their pay, whether working or furloughed, to 80%, that may well be the pay used to calculate redundancy.

Flybaby

Hi Jeremy535897 and Thrugelmir - thank you for your thoughts.

Unfortunately, due to the history of the management of the company in the past, staff strongly suspect that the delay has nothing to do with trying to save this company or jobs, but to do with the Directors trying to transfer key contracts/clients to a new company (that was started by one of the Directors on the day before the redundacies were announced). Staff are very grateful to have at least been Furloughed and appreciate that others are in a much worse situation than them in the current situation.

I have provided health and safety advice to the staff in the past (issues such as the directors refusing to provide or allow the staff to provide their own microwave - gives an indication of the Directors attititude to their staff) and they have asked my thoughts on whether they can "force" the directors to communicate with them. The Directors sent an email to the staff in early June confirming that the collective and individual consultations had been concluded, but have not provided any indication as to the result of the consultations and the effect it may have had or not on the proposed redundancies. I have reviewed the available information on gov.com/ acas etc and I believe the company is legally required to maintain communication during redundancy processes and provide the staff with the result of the consultation process, but as it is not my specialist area and these are very unusual circumstances, I was looking to see if anyone could shed further light. The HR1 form submitted by the company indicated the start of the redundancies would be over a month ago so they are tearing their hair out with the not knowing.

ChickiLaLa

Hi all,

Posting this so others can help confirm that the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme Eligibility Checker is actually working correctly... more specifically, does the checker actually verify that the UTR and the NI relate to the same account?

Jeremy535897

ChickiLaLa said:

Hi all,

Posting this so others can help confirm that the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme Eligibility Checker is actually working correctly... more specifically, does the checker actually verify that the UTR and the NI relate to the same account?

You should put this on its own thread, as it has nothing whatsoever to do with this one.

Thrugelmir

Flybaby said:

Unfortunately, due to the history of the management of the company in the past, staff strongly suspect that the delay has nothing to do with trying to save this company or jobs, but to do with the Directors trying to transfer key contracts/clients to a new company (that was started by one of the Directors on the day before the redundacies were announced). 

Pre pack administration is extremely common. Bottom line is that it will save some jobs. 

Jeremy535897

Flybaby said:

Hi Jeremy535897 and Thrugelmir - thank you for your thoughts.

Unfortunately, due to the history of the management of the company in the past, staff strongly suspect that the delay has nothing to do with trying to save this company or jobs, but to do with the Directors trying to transfer key contracts/clients to a new company (that was started by one of the Directors on the day before the redundacies were announced). Staff are very grateful to have at least been Furloughed and appreciate that others are in a much worse situation than them in the current situation.

I have provided health and safety advice to the staff in the past (issues such as the directors refusing to provide or allow the staff to provide their own microwave - gives an indication of the Directors attititude to their staff) and they have asked my thoughts on whether they can "force" the directors to communicate with them. The Directors sent an email to the staff in early June confirming that the collective and individual consultations had been concluded, but have not provided any indication as to the result of the consultations and the effect it may have had or not on the proposed redundancies. I have reviewed the available information on gov.com/ acas etc and I believe the company is legally required to maintain communication during redundancy processes and provide the staff with the result of the consultation process, but as it is not my specialist area and these are very unusual circumstances, I was looking to see if anyone could shed further light. The HR1 form submitted by the company indicated the start of the redundancies would be over a month ago so they are tearing their hair out with the not knowing.

The consultation process involves:

"Follow these steps.

1. You must notify the Redundancy Payments Service (RPS) before a consultation starts. The deadline depends on the number of proposed redundancies.

2. Consult with trade union representatives or elected employee representatives - or with staff directly if there are none.

3. Provide information to representatives or staff about the planned redundancies, giving representatives or staff enough time to consider them.

4. Respond to any requests for further information.

5. Give any affected staff termination notices showing the agreed leaving date.

6. Issue redundancy notices once the consultation is complete."

There is no time limit placed on the consultation process, but they are not complying with step 4 above, at the very least, and if they have said consultations are complete, they should proceed to steps 5 and 6. Do you think that they are going to start up in the new company with different staff and leave the current company insolvent?

Employers are obliged to inform employees of the result of the consultation process. See:

"What Happens When Consultation is Over

When your employer has finished their consultation they are obliged to tell you in writing what decision they have made. If you are to be made redundant they must give you the reasons why in writing,

Once the consultation period is over your employer will not have to give you any notice of your redundancy and they can make you redundant on the spot.

If at the end of our consultation period your employer decides to not make you redundant you will go back to work as normal.

Consultation does not always end in redundancy and in many cases employers will place more staff than is necessary in consolation so they can be seen to be taking a fair and responsible approach to redundancies. But when an employer does place people into redundancy it will almost always results in some redundancies being made."

From http://www.redundancyexpert.co.uk/does-consultation-end-redundancy.html

I am not a lawyer, and I have not tracked down the law concerning all of this. Redundancy generally is dealt with by Part XI Employment Rights Act 1996.

lincroft1710

Flybaby said:

Staff were told they were at risk of redundancy and put through the consultation verbally, but essentially not given the results of the consultation and are left not knowing if they are going to be made redundant or not - they can't start looking for new jobs as they can't officially accept a new job without resigning and therfore losing redundancy ( most staff over 15 years service).

I would suspect that the directors are hoping some members of staff will decide to look for new jobs and thus resign, thereby saving the company money by not having to pay redundancy. If you are at risk of redundancy and a suitable job becomes available, it may be worth taking and sacrificing redundancy payment.

Flybaby

Thanks for your thoughts and comments.

By way of an update, the staff were informed by a brief email at the beginning of August that they 'remain on Furlough and no further communications will be received until the end of the month.' Some staff with new job offers pushed for an answer on redundancy and were told at the end of July/ beginning of August that no redundancies will be made and they remain on Furlough and have therfore decided to resign in order to take up new opportuinities.

At the same time, the company office property is now up for sale and customers of the company who have put notices on their website stating that they have had to change suppliers due to the demise of this company. It is clear the company is over and the Directors are using the Furlough scheme incorrectly (to claim staff wages and therefore maintain staff for as long as possible, so that they do not have to pay redundancy out of their pockets), with the intention being to leave the staff to fend for themselves in the RPS when the company officially collapses.

It is so saddening to see Directors treating their staff, most of whom have many years service, with so little care in such troubling times.