Why put yourself through the stress of solicitors and fighting it all? – I went through some shite at my last place, then we were bought out and I was made redundant anyway. All the anguish, sleepless nights and stress were for nothing.

Stick with the positive spin and put your energies into finding something new, would be my advice.

(and it’s ‘pissed off’, not ‘pissed’!)

Cletus – Member
Is it worth paying for some advice from a solicitor? From doing some reading I would have to prove that the process was unfair and the obvious way of doing this would be to challenge the 50% multiplier the more junior guy was awarded.

Not worth it. You might as well use that money to search for another job or do something else.

It is all about the process leading to your redundancy judgement. If the company has gone through all the due process then they are entitled to make whatever the decision they wish. This is because when the company follows the process or procedure of redundancy there is no “bias” in their decision or the unfair aspect has been “taken out”.

What you are trying to proof is they have made the wrong decision but what the company is saying is that they are entitled to make whatever decision they want so long as all procedures are followed. Bad decision? Well, everyone is entitled to make good or bad decision and I doubt employment law will intervene in this case.

If you can proof that they have missed out on the process or procedures leading to your redundancy then you have a chance otherwise you have no chance whatsoever.

Can anyone who has managed to read this far and has relevant experience advise on whether there would be any grounds for action.

You are just prolonging your pain. Don’t do it … move on. It’s all about probability.

A rough idea of how much a decent lawyer would cost for some initial advice would be useful too.

I will PM the two people who offered to put me in touch with lawyers after the next meeting.

No idea but I suspect they don’t come cheap … I guess £2-300/hr? I don’t know but just guessing that’s all.

See my earlier post. Don’t put yourself through it unless absolutely necessary. Take the money and run and save yourself the anguish of an ultimately pointless battle.

You’re understandably angry at the moment-don’t let that cause you to make the wrong decision.

The money offered will be key. Be aware you may not get that long to decide whether to take the offer, note it is an offer if you turn it down / challenge it (unsuccessfully) it will fall back to statutory (ie not much). Also be aware employment lawyers are expensive, you’ll spend many thousands just on exchnage of letters and any tribuneral could easily cost £20k++

In general I think these situations are best treated as a life experience. Make sure you get an agreed reference letter drawn up and in your hands / email box and move on. Try not to give the old company much thought and focus on the future.

Certainly think it is worth considering engaging a lawyer, not to reverse the decision but to help ramp up the leaving deal. Depends what they offer of course…

Certainly think it is worth considering engaging a lawyer, not to reverse the decision but to help ramp up the leaving deal. Depends what they offer of course…

It can also ramp down the deal though-particularly if the offer is above statutory minimum.

There’s always a chance they’ll pull the deal off the table and force your hand and a tribunal may decide the process was fair then the company gives you the bear minimum.

As Jamba says the amount on the table is key but a lawyer will have to bump the money by quite an amount to cover their cost and to compensate for the stress of it all. Trusty me they’re not cheap. When I went through it it cost £6k and that was at a hugely discounted mates rates.

Acas will offer a good steer as to whether they think the process has been followed and bear in mind these days you have to go to Acas before a tribunal in any event so speak to them and save on lawyer fees for now.

Don’t forget also even the tribunal costs ape £1200 now and if they decide the offer on the table is fair then you’re essentially that amount down from where you would have been.

The more junior guy was awarded a 50% multiplier on some of the scores

Is this guy also the youngest? Sounds like age discrimination to me…

I’d run what you know past ACAS but accept that you are going and focus on finding somewhere new.

Slightly different, albeit greedy, perspective is that I wish I’d have seen a lawyer before I took the settlement agreement simply to find out how much he thought I could have won.

I was due to get (I think) about 5 months net pay under contract. In the end I walked with more than double that. So happy days. But the company had followed their process but allowed people in the process to decide the fate of others in that process – pretty clear cut screwup. So I always wanted to know could I have paid off the mortgage with my winnings, or not.

Just because you speak to a lawyer doesn’t mean you’re going to use them.

In my case someone in the company had a word with hr to say I was willing to fight, and were they willing to settle. That was useful as I’d had enough by that point – very emotional and stressed!

I’d use the money on something positive like help with an awesome cv. Move on.

Dont bother with the lawyer, all that will happen is they will find out that they did the process wrong. They will re do it correctly and you still be the one to be made redundant. Your card sounds like its been marked so its always going to be you.

Or the OP + solicitor can use it as ammo for an enhanced payoff. Stump up the ££ and I’ll go without further legal action type thing.

Thats tough. Been on both sides of the redundancy table and its not a fun process, for both sides.
I would probably ask for a settlement above what you are legally entitled to. Make a list of where they went wrong in their redundancy selection process. Just remember its your salary plus NI ( 13%?) they will be saving each week so a straightforward number, plus be out the door by the end of the month means a clean break.
HR might have told your manager to reduce the head count. He probably didnt enjoy the expereince either.
You should put your county and area of expertise on here, this nonsense is read by a surprising number of people from huge varied backgrounds

Dont bother with the lawyer, all that will happen is they will find out that they did the process wrong. They will re do it correctly and you still be the one to be made redundant. Your card sounds like its been marked so its always going to be you.

An ex colleague fought his dismissal (I was a witness for him) he won about £5k (the amount of extra salary he would have got if they had done the process correctly) – cost him £27k.

OP the scoring system is just an excuse / cover their arse thing, you know that I am sure. Young guy costs less, they are saving money. So then it’s a coin toss between you and the other guy.

I have been both sides of the table, it’s a bit sh.t in both circumstances in different ways.

We have had a few threads on redundancies, see it as an opportunity, a fresh start. Make some plans as to how to spend some of the time doing fun stuff (even just taking kids to/from school).

Cletus, can you pm me through the forum, I tried yo send you a mail but couldn’t see an address…

It’s for your new cv..

Thanks rickmeister – I have sent you an email 🙂

Great, I’ll pick that up tomorrow and be in touch.

So had the third meeting today. I have been told I will get Statutory Redundancy Pay for 12 weeks based upon 2 years before age 40 and 7 after.

I am a bit gutted by this after spending some of my peak years with them. Apparently this is final and I do not have to sign a settlement agreement.

Someone in another team who is in the same boat did have to talk to a lawyer but also was not happy with their offer. I did not ask them whether they only got statutory as well.

Anecdotally it seems that the company has in the past paid more and a recent test case against Peacocks was successful. I feel that I am being treated badly especially after such a toxic selection process.

Not sure what to do here. I had anticipated a more generous offer which I would accept and move on. I had rough plans to spend some of the money on updating my skills but I do not think that I will be able to do that now.

I would love to shoot the idiots whose forecasted deals disappeared into the ether and resulted in the team being expanded.

Anecdotally it seems that the company has in the past paid more and a recent test case against Peacocks was successful.

There’s definitely case law on this, you need to find out details of past payment practices

That’s quite poor, I’d say now is the time to talk to a specialist solicitor in employment law, I’d want professional advise before moving forward, even if it is to discount an action.

I think you’ve misunderstood what a settlement agreement is. They offer/award you a redundancy amount – you believe they are on dodgy ground so you tell them you’ll fight for redundancy unless they make a SA.

A SA is a full and final offer to get rid of you. That’s all. Don’t think mine even mentioned redundancy – just gives amounts and conditions of you exiting the company.

Get some advice.

ACAS guide on SA

It seems to me that the company is offering you the statutory weeks, on the basis that is what you are due according to their assessment and selection process.

If you disagree with that (I think I would) you might want to make that known. Having done so, one solution is to agree a SA (in short the amount that is enough to make you go quietly). If they are sure of thier position, they might not see benefit in doing so.

If you are convinced of your position (and prepared to defend it at tribunal), get some advice as to how to kick up a suitably large fuss, but do so in a way that is respectful to your former employer.

My reading of it (it’s been a while since I did one of these) is that they’ve overlapped the consultation and selection periods (but that’s less clear if the selection was between 3 of you), and there’s a possible argument about the selection itself.

(edited for clarity)

TLDR – get some advice

lots of people just get statutory redundancy why should a firm pay out more, thats how it works for most firms, theyre trying to save money/reduce costs, thats sad for those involved,i worked at a company for 6 years, only got satutory for 4 years as 2 didnt count as i was an apprentice but thats buisness life for you, best wishes on the new career.

Hum, not so great.

OP sadly what they have paid in the past does not necessarily mean you’ll get more now. I know many companies who are paying a fraction (ie 30%) of what they used to pay. Redundancy Policy is exactly that it’s a policy which can change at any time it’s not a fixed part of a contract.

The “it’s final” is standard practice language, it doesn’t mean it is. You are welcome to challenge, I very much doubt they’ll rescind the offer if you oush back a bit but note there is a risk.

AFAIK if you go to Tribunal you’ll not get more than statutory unless you win you where unfairly made redundant which imo is unlikley. (I am not a lawyer)

Best of luck

When you say Statutory Redundancy Pay, do you mean at 12 weeks at (maximum of) £479 per week or 12 weeks at your salary/bonus/benefits/pension level etc?

On the process, I went through similar along with the whole team (half the development department), years ago now on my last permie job. It was a stressful process. Again, American company. They’d come in to buy the (British) company, and followed the rules on consultation period so that dragged it out and did the whole process of getting existing managers to score people. It was clearly rigged as the whole team had weird things marked against them to ensure we were all booted out.

Thing is at that point I wanted out anyway and I’d rather they’d just wrap it up quick and go with it.

Voluntary redundancy was on offer but you of course don’t take that as the pay out is far less.

In my case I got a pretty good deal I felt. I forget the amount but was based on the number of years there and think would have been that at full pay for the equivalent number of weeks (is that statutory or more?), plus all outstanding holiday to the end of the year. On top of that we had shares in the company being sold we got money for those shares.

Set me up to go contracting.

Out of the politics, the crap like this and backstabbing, and a lot more money. Downside is easy hire, easy fire.

p.s. remember that redundancy pay is tax free.

I have read elsewhere information given by lawyers that if the calculation varies from the custom over a 5 year period then you should challenge it and you’ll have a reasonable case.

I have no idea if that is actually the case, but incidentally, I was given my redundancy quote today and if it had been based on your calculations I would be gutted and looking at legal advice.

p.s. remember that redundancy pay is tax free.

No it’s not, unless it’s non-contractual (or something like that).

The first £30000 is tax free, but not other benefits in kind
https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/do-you-have-to-pay-tax-on-your-redundancy-payout#what-is-tax-free

b r – Member 
No it’s not, unless it’s non-contractual (or something like that).

Yes it is. Up to £30k

Redundancy pay (including any severance pay) under £30,000 isn’t taxable.[/I]

https://www.gov.uk/redundant-your-rights/redundancy-pay

And I definitely got mine tax free.

Sorry to read this and I cannot add anything other than say post up here what you would like to retrain in and someone reading can probably help. Sign of the times I am afraid.