Earlier Start to Redundancy Consultation?

Colleges are being advised to begin redundancy consultation earlier as a result of recent case law, reported previously on this blog.

The Association of Colleges has issued a briefing to its members saying that the duty to consult on collective redundancies starts when they are first being contemplated. They say that this means consulting the moment redundancies become a possibility, rather than when they are actually proposed.

Eversheds, the law firm that represents many FE colleges, said in their own briefing (HR e-briefing 291) that, “This case represents a significant step towards European consultation practices by involving worker representatives in the reasons for redundancies and closures, as opposed to presenting such situations as a fait accompli.”

ACM has argued consistently that most colleges only pay lip service to consultation. But with the employers organisation and their solicitors both now saying consultation must begin earlier, then perhaps things will at last improve. One key test of the new advice will be whether consultation starts before the governors are given the final proposals, something that until now would be unheard of. The legal ruling and all the advice suggests that it should, so we expect some interesting arguments ahead.