Question On Redundancy

[cassa333]

Hi,

I work in a school pt. in my department there are about 13 of us. Four work with special needs.

Overall they are looking to lose about 20 hours (just under 4 people) from my department and 7 people form another department. Some are in my department as well and work with special needs children.

Some of those that work in the other department are on yearly contracts working with the special needs children and also in my department but not necessarily with the soecial needs children.

They have said the criteria for redundancy will be skills based and not last in first out which is the fare way of doing it I suppose.

However I was wondering, when doing redundancy criteria, are they allowed to include those on yearly contracts to keep their jobs when they could just not renew them and not have to make anyone actually redundant?

Thanks

[bednobs]

it depends when they need to lose the hours by i suppose. Surely yearly contracts were only renewed lst term

[woofgang]

well I guess that may be why they have said they will use skills based criteria. If they have got a highly skilled person on an annual contract, they may well prefer to retain that person over a less skilled person who is on a more permanent arrangement.

[tonyav]

Besides skills other things should be taken into consideration ie timekeeping, warnings etc.

[TonyV]

Is it to late to join a union?

[woofgang]

I think that provided whatever criteria are adopted are fair and they are applied fairly, they can decide their own.
here’s some helpful stuff
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/work-comes-to-an-end/redundancy/redundancy-procedures-your-employer-must-follow/

[fiction-factory]

They may also decide that rather than pay out redundancy to those on permanent contracts it would be fairer and cheaper to terminate temporary contracts or give notice. Another factor is length of service- those there less than a year or two can be dismissed for almost any reason other than race, sex etc

[cassa333]

The tempary contracts are to the end of the academic year and the savings from the new academic year in Sept so in theory they could just get rid of the contracts people.

I think they are going on skills because the people with the skills are the ones who work in both departments.

From my point of view it will be what it will be and I will either have a job in Sept or not. I don't hold out much hope though as I am not very good at self promotion.

[Postdog]

Redundancy should be the job, not the person doing the job.

[Dogsbody2]

Postdog: when there are overlapping skills amongst jobholders, and/or several people with the same job title, one has to pick (and declare) the pool of people from which redundancies will be selected.

I cannot add to the excellent answer provided by Woofgang.

LIFO is not a very fare (sic) method to select for redundancies as it does not consider those most able to fulfil the job requirements.

[thugulike]

It is the length of continuous service which counts and not whether they are on yearly contracts. Ask to see the selection criteria and make sure that it's fair and that they don't confuse negative and positive factors. Eg If you have a excellent aptitude for your job you could score 10/10 but if you had a poor attendance record that could score you 8/10. That type of confusion is common in selection criteria. You could ask for help from the union.