Redundancy

Hi Sonia

Collective consultation isn’t mandatory at all unless 20 or more individuals are affected, so unless further redundancies are envisaged on top of these, individual consultation only is the critical aspect. Generally, it’s not good ever  to declare that all consultation is now at an end: consultation can and must if needs be run concurrently with notice of redundancy dismissal. Collective consultation if mandatory must by law commence *at least* x days before the first dismissals ‘take effect’. If you serve formal notice on an individual though before you have consulted them, you run the risk of a claim that the consultation was a sham and the whole thing a foregone conclusion, so depending on the exact individual circumstances, a reasonable level of consultation before issuing formal dismissal notices is going to be almost essential.

ACAS general guidance can be invaluable - eg



www.acas.org.uk/.../Redundancy-handling-accessible-version.pdf

www.acas.org.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx

Redundancy can be catastrophic / traumatic for *everyone* involved and must be handled in the best and least-damaging possible manner, so I’d urge you and your employers to tread very carefully and under as much guidance as you can obtain - good though that you’ve made a start, here!