Partner Article

Redundancy notice period halved

Employers can now make large scale redundancies after 45 days notice, under new government rules.

The Employment Minister Jo Swinson announced the measures, that will also mean fixed term contracts which have reached the end of their natural life are excluded from the obligation for collective redundancy consultation.

The changes have garnered criticism from the TUC, who said “making it easier to sack people is the last thing we need.”

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “These measures will not create a single extra job. The idea that an employer will change their mind about taking someone on because the statutory redundancy consultation period has been reduced from 90 to 45 days is close to absurd.

“Removing consultation rights from fixed-term contract staff will seriously increase job and financial insecurity for vulnerable groups of workers, and temporary staff will lose out on redeployment opportunities.”

Meanwhile, business groups such as the CBI and IoD welcomed the measures. Neil Carberry, CBI director for Employment and Skills commented: “The priority for businesses is meaningful consultation. A shorter consultation period will reduce uncertainty for staff and allow businesses to focus on the future more quickly.”

Alexander Ehmann, head of Regulatory Policy at the IoD, added: “Removing those employees on expired fixed-term contracts from this legislation is welcome, as their original inclusion was a particularly egregious example of the unnecessary “gold-plating” of European legislation. The deregulatory principle demonstrated here could usefully be applied to other strands of employment law.”

Ms Swinson said: “The UK has a labour market that is flexible, efficient and fair but some of our laws need reform to respond to an ever changing employment landscape.

“We want to improve the quality of consultations by making sure that there are tools available to help employers manage this process fairly and successfully to deliver the best possible outcomes for all parties. Acas will be working with stakeholders to produce non-statutory guidance that will be designed to help improve the quality of consultations.

“We have listened to stakeholders and there is a strong argument for shortening the minimum period which is backed up by hard evidence.

“The process is usually completed well within the existing 90-day minimum period, which can cause unnecessary delays for restructuring, and make it difficult for those affected to get new jobs quickly.

“Our reforms will strike an appropriate balance between making sure employees are engaged in decisions about their future and allowing employers greater certainty and flexibility to take necessary steps to restructure.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .