Acas guidance — areas for consultation

Acas guidance on consultation: How to manage collective redundancies, published in April 2013, includes a sample redundancy procedure. It suggests the following areas for consultation:

• commitment to keep local trade unions and employee reps informed as fully as possible about staffing requirements and any need for redundancies;

• how long consultation is to last;

• who is to be consulted;

• what must be discussed;

• how consultation should be conducted, focusing on the spirit of the consultation — with a view to reaching agreement and including a commitment to consider alternative proposals;

• what statutory information must be provided;

• additional areas on which to consult, including:

◊ the effect on earnings, where transfer or down-grading is accepted as an alternative to redundancy;

◊ arrangements for travel, removal and related expenses where a new role is on a different site;

◊ arrangements for reasonable time off with pay to look for jobs or arrange training;

◊ help with job hunting;

◊ arrangements to transfer apprenticeships;

• measures to avoid redundancy, including:

◊ natural wastage;

◊ restricting recruitment of permanent staff;

◊ reduced use of agency workers;

◊ filling vacancies internally;

◊ cutting overtime;

◊ cutting hours e.g. short time working; and

◊ training, retraining and redeployment.

www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/o/i/How-to-manage-collective-redundancies.pdf

Other possibilities, not mentioned in the Acas guidance on consultation include: finding savings elsewhere in the organisation, reorganising work, cutting executive pay and benefits, temporary flexible working arrangements, sabbaticals, secondments and unpaid leave. The equality impact of redundancies should be embedded at every stage of the consultation.