Redundancy Protective Award Solicitors

If an employer proposes to make 20 or more employees redundant at one workplace, it must inform and consult workplace representatives. Consultation must last for a minimum of 30 days (where between 20 and 99 redundancies are made) or 45 days (where 100 or more redundancies are made). This is known as a “collective consultation”. 

If the employer fails to comply with those duties, a “protective award” can be made, which is the name for the compensation payable to each redundant employee. 

Protective Award compensation isn’t the same as notice pay or redundancy pay – it’s a claim for additional compensation for the lack of information and consultation.

The maximum award an Employment Tribunal can make is 90 days’ gross pay, but this can be reduced in certain circumstances. 

Where the company is insolvent, up to 8 weeks of that award can be recovered from the government’s Insolvency Service. 

There is generally a time limit of 3 months (less one day) from the date you are made redundant, within which to pursue this claim in the Employment Tribunal. This is subject to any extension through use of the ACAS Early Conciliation process. 

To be eligible you must have been an employee (not self-employed) and you must be 1 of 20 or more people made redundant (or to be made redundant shortly) at a single workplace (or “establishment”). 

If you were field-based or worked across different sites, you might be eligible to make a claim depending on the facts of your case. It depends on the nature of your role, the number of individuals that work in the same way, and how your workplace (establishment) is defined. 

If representatives were elected for redundancy consultation or there was an existing employee forum or recognised union, the representative(s) have to pursue the Protective Award claim for you. You must therefore identify whether representatives were in place, if so, and make sure they join you in making a claim. 

These claims don’t depend on your length of service – you might only have been employed a matter of weeks before being made redundant and it wouldn’t matter. 

A claim must generally be made to an Employment Tribunal within 3 months (less a day) from the date you were made redundant, subject to any extension of time that might be granted for completing ACAS Early Conciliation within that period. 

If your claim isn’t lodged in time, it could automatically fail. You must therefore act quickly. 

The maximum award an Employment Tribunal can make is 90 days’ gross pay but this can be reduced in certain circumstances. 

Where the company is insolvent, it is likely that only a proportion of the compensation awarded by the Tribunal will be recovered via the government’s Insolvency Service (see below). 

In cases of insolvency the government’s Insolvency Service can pay Protective Award compensation out of the National Insurance Fund but only if you have a Tribunal judgment. The amount is limited to a maximum of 8 weeks’ gross pay and is subject to statutory limits, less amounts already paid to you any arrears of pay. You can find out more about Protective Awards, Insolvency and Redundancies here. 

We deal with all Protective Award claims on a no win, no fee basis. That means that you will not need to pay anything unless your case is successful.  

Legal fees and expenses are only payable at the end of the case, from the compensation you recover. Each person contributes to the overall costs and the more people we have in the litigation group, the lower the costs.  If you lose, you don’t pay anything. 

If you are a trade union member you must contact your union and seek their support in pursuing a claim. Trade union membership is by far the best way of funding these types of claim, as legal assistance is usually a benefit of membership, and you won’t therefore have any fees to pay. 

You must let us know if trade unions operate within the company generally. We need to check whether you were part of a trade union bargaining unit as it may impact on how the claim can be pursued.