Public sector redundancy pay


Civil servants are not entitled to statutory redundancy pay or time off, but instead they are entitled to enhanced redundancy pay under the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, and to time off to look for work. 


For local government employees, there is a separate statutory scheme, set out in the Local Government (Early Termination of Employment) (Discretionary Compensation) (England and Wales) Regulations 2006. 


Redundancy and other termination payments are under attack by this government, not only in the civil service but across the whole of the public sector, including local government workers. There are three features to this attack:


• ‘capping’exit payments;


• ‘recovering’ exit payments from workers who return to work in the public sector; and


• changing the basis on which payments are calculated to reduce the amount paid.


The measures will impact negatively on workers across the public sector, including nurses, teachers, firefighters, police officers and paramedics and come on top of an average pay award of just 1% across public sector workforces for four years from 2016-17, announced in the summer budget of 2015.