Redundancy Selection. Iny Miny Miney Mo.

In order for a redundancy procedure to be fair, it is essential that a fair procedure be followed. That will include a) selecting a pool of candidates from whom redundancies will be selected, b) consulting with those people, and c) applying clear criteria for selecting the people to be made redundant, which ideally should be objectively verifiable.

    

In the recent case of County Print v Page EAT 2010  it was held that employers should gives employees adequate information on which the employee can respond and argue his or her case. That includes the criteria relied upon to select for redundancy. In this case, one of the criteria relied upon was ‘flexibility’ (a notoriously slippery concept). Mr Page asked to see the scores for himself and the others at risk. The company refused to explain how the scoring matrix had been applied, and in particular the basis of scoring on ‘flexibility’.

   

The Tribunal found the dismissal was unfair, and this was upheld by the EAT. Before adopting a redundancy scoring matrix, employers would be wise to consult carefully with employees on the matrix first, and ensure that the employees fully understand how those criteria will be applied in practice. Pulling a score out of the air without something to back it up may well leave the employer in trouble.

 

With thanks to barrister Daniel Barnett for news of this decision.

      

James Carmody

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