Redundancy, Restructuring and TUPE Support
Plan it properly before anything is announced.
Almost every redundancy claim we defend has the same root cause: the decision was made first, and the process was constructed around it afterwards. Tribunals are extremely good at spotting that sequence.
Plan your restructure with a solicitor →
Redundancy
Establishing and documenting the genuine business rationale. Considering the alternatives properly, and recording that you did. Defining defensible selection pools. Objective criteria, scoring and moderation — checked for indirect discrimination before anyone is scored. Meaningful individual consultation. Suitable alternative employment and trial periods. Redundancy pay, notice and accrued holiday. Maternity, family leave and disability considerations in selection. Dismissal letters and appeals.
Collective consultation
Where larger numbers are proposed, additional statutory duties bite: information and consultation obligations, election of employee representatives or engagement with recognised unions, minimum consultation periods, and notification to the relevant government department.
Failure carries a protective award measured in weeks of gross pay per affected employee — which is why this is the single most expensive procedural error in employment law.
The notification route differs by jurisdiction: in Northern Ireland collective redundancy notification goes to the Department for the Economy, not the GB department. Get the form and the recipient right.
Restructuring and changing terms
Not every reorganisation creates a redundancy. We advise on changes to roles and reporting lines; changes to hours, pay or place of work; combining or splitting responsibilities; requiring employees to apply for revised roles; contractual variation and consent; and the risks of dismissal and re-engagement, an increasingly constrained route in Great Britain.
TUPE and business transfers
Whether TUPE applies at all is often the entire battleground. We advise on due diligence and employee liability information, information and consultation, measures proposed in connection with the transfer, post-transfer harmonisation and why it usually fails, transfer-connected dismissals and the ETO defence, and the employment provisions in the commercial contract itself.
Northern Ireland is materially different here, and this catches out competent GB advisers.
TUPE applies in NI, but service provision changes are governed by separate local legislation — the Service Provision Change (Protection of Employment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 — and the amendments made to TUPE in Great Britain in 2014 and 2023 do not extend to NI.
The NI position therefore remains broadly as GB was before 2014. If you are outsourcing, insourcing or acquiring across the Irish Sea, the rules on each side are not the same.