Second redundancy consultation letter

When contemplating making an employee redundant, you will first need to enter into a period of individual consultation, which will involve arranging a series of meetings with the employee to discuss your proposal in more detail.

Compulsory redundancy

Once you have explored all the avenues to avoid a redundancy programme, you may find you still have no choice but to make one or more compulsory redundancies. Your starting point then will be to fairly select those employees who may need to be made redundant. You should write to the employee setting out in detail the business reasons behind the proposed redundancy programme, advising them of their provisional selection for redundancy and the grounds for their selection, i.e. the selection criteria adopted and the individual marks awarded to that employee, and arranging a meeting to discuss your proposal with them. Use the Second Redundancy Consultation Letter here. Your letter must give sufficient information to the employee about the circumstances that might lead to the termination of their employment but without giving the appearance that you’ve already made up your mind! Be aware that you still need to follow a fair procedure in relation to volunteers for redundancy. This is because they are, in effect, volunteering to be dismissed (they’re not resigning), so it’s still a dismissal in law.

Consultation meetings

One of the main purposes of consultation is to discuss the application of the redundancy selection criteria to the individual concerned. The employee should be given a fair opportunity to explain any factors which may influence your decision to select them for redundancy. Individual consultation also provides an opportunity to discuss the possibility of alternative employment within the business and it permits the employee to make representations about their employment prior to any decisions being taken. After the meeting, you should write summarising what was discussed and agreed. You will probably then have one or two further individual consultation meetings with the employee before any final decisions on redundancy are made. There is no statutory right for the employee to be accompanied at consultation meetings. However, we recommend you permit this as part of an overall fair procedure.