Dismissal Procedures & Redundancy

23 May 2006:

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has set out what employers need to do to comply with steps one and two of the dismissal procedure in a redundancy situation.

It said that under step one, an employer must inform an employee in writing that they are at risk of redundancy, and why. Under step two, it is required to provide the at-risk employee with information about why there is a redundancy situation and, more importantly, why they have been provisionally selected. This means providing employees with details of any selection criteria together with their individual scores prior to any meeting taking place. While the statutory dismissal procedure does not require employers to provide this information in writing, it makes sense from a practical point of view for them to do this.

According to the EAT, an employer is not required to provide staff with information about the 'break point' - the mark they would need to achieve to remain in employment, or the scores of other employees in the selection pool.

For further information:

ACAS free e-learning course on 'Handling Redundancy':

Web: [http://www.acas.org.uk/elearning/]

'What to do when considering redundancies':

Web: [www.businesslinkwessex.co.uk]