Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR, the HR blog written by and for members of Human Resources UK.
Just briefly to a bit of group news. This week I formally announced the additions of the Birmingham and Manchester events to our HR networking events taking place in September. You can find more information about the events here
To the point at hand, today we welcome back our regular writer and employment law expert Annabel Kaye who continues with her TUPE series. (Ed Scrivener)
Measure for Measure . . . TUPE and redundancy
We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror.
(Wm Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act II, Sc I)
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| Much Ado About TUPE was never published... |
The TUPE regulations are too dynamic for the comfort of those advising their employer (or their clients), with caselaw often changing between taking on a service contract and losing it again. This is very anxiety-provoking for most HR practitioners, since ‘getting it wrong’ can mean their employer is taking on liabilities they otherwise need not, or, worse still, on the losing end of several employment tribunal claims.
This is particularly so when a TUPE transfer involves potential headcount changes and redundancies.
The legislation on redundancy and TUPE intertwine and interleave, and it can be tricky working out who needs to be consulted about what, in what format, over what period of time, and by whom. So let’s have a go.
Consultation | TUPE consultation | Redundancy consultation |
Statutory obligation to inform or consult with appropriate representatives | Always, no threshold of employee numbers | 20 plus redundancies at one establishment within 90 days |
Appropriate representatives | Reps from recognised trade union; or employee reps appointed or elected by affected employees for another purpose; or specially elected/appointed employee reps | Reps from recognised trade union; or employee reps appointed or elected by affected employees for another purpose; or specially elected/appointed employee reps |
Statutory Timescales | No defined statutory minimum period of consultation Information about transfer given to reps long enough before the transfer to enable consultation (with a view to seeking agreement) to take place on the ‘measures’ to be taken by either employer | Less than 20 redundancies - no specified timescale 20+ redundancies at least 30 days before first dismissal takes effect 100 +plus redundancies; 90 days Consultation ‘in good time’ |
Description of employees covered by the consultation | Anyone who may be affected by the transfer (not just those transferring) | Anyone at risk, and those who may be affected by measures taken in connection with those dismissals |
Duty to inform | Inform, in writing: fact of transfer, date, reasons, implications for affected employees, measures envisaged in relation to affected employees | Inform, in writing: reasons; numbers and descriptions of employees proposed to be redundant, and total number of employees of each description at the establishment; proposed method of selection, and proposed method and timing of dismissals; proposed redundancy payments; number of agency workers working for employer, where in the business, and doing what |
Duty to consult | With a view to seeking agreement to intended measures, considering representations, and stating reasons if proposals rejected | with a view to reaching agreement, about ways of avoiding the dismissals, reducing the numbers, and mitigating the consequences |
On whom duty is placed | Transferor to consult; transferee to provide ‘measures’ statement | Employer |
Penalties | Up to 13 weeks’ pay (statutory maximum not applying) | Protective award up to 90 days’ pay |
The Government made a call for evidence on ways to improve TUPE, which closed on 31 January 2012. No draft legislation has been published.
TUPE caselaw is developing all the time. Where redundancies are to take place in a TUPE scenario, then both sets of regulations and caselaw have to be considered and applied.
The redundancy consultation process and timing requirements are currently the subject of consultation which ends on 19 September (http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/employment-matters/docs/c/12-808-collective-redundancies-consultation.pdf). It is proposed to shorten the consultation period for 100+ redundancy exercises.
Many of the toughest issues around TUPE, economic technical or organisational dismissals (ETOs) and collective redundancies (or finding alternatives to them) are most effectively resolved by having a good consultation process.
Having clear organisational and commercial objectives does not mean that the way of achieving these is set in stone, and there is a real difference between the aftermath of a well constructed and well consulted process, and the fall-out from a rushed compliance exercise.
As long as the law applies to what employers can do to employees at work, there is always going to be an area of ‘grey’. It is simply not possible to arrive at a system that is both predictable and clear and also flexible and fair (http://irenicon.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/red-tape-and-fairness/).
If we accept this as a fact and work within it, then it becomes obvious that the way to deal with the ‘grey’ areas is to have a conversation – in other words, to consult. If you do this in a TUPE context you will quickly discover that some people:
- don’t want to TUPE through and would be happy to be made redundant (whether or not a genuine redundancy situation exists)
- are not willing or able to change location/work base if that is what is needed
- are not willing or able to learn new working methods and techniques
- and by way of comparison some people
- are keen to expand their skill base
- are keen to change location
- have unused skills in their current role that would be useful in a new structure
- will do just about anything to keep a particular job
I have often sat down with HR teams and Directors who have said “X will never do this, Y will never agree to that”. Sometimes they are right, but equally they can be wrong. Flexibility can be as much influenced by circumstances as by personality. We don’t know what people are keen to do until we ask them, and lay out the options for them. Good consultation can have useful individual results, as well as improving the atmosphere at a challenging time.
About the author
Annabel Kaye has been specialising in employment law since the seventies. She founded Irenicon in 1980 and has spent the last thirty years helping HR, line managers and everyone else look at employment law in a way that gets some organisational gain. She likes to think about things from a different angle and making the complex simple – despite the government’s best efforts. She has traded through three recessions and advised clients from multi-national corporations to the smallest organisation. The toughest thing has always been to balance the competing needs of staff and organisation and that never goes away whatever the legal details.
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Discuss HR is the blog for Human Resources UK, the leading LinkedIn group for those involved with HR in the UK. Next week’s Discuss HR will be written by Susan Popoola.
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