• 0.5 week’s pay for each full year of service where age during year less than 22
• 1.0 week’s pay for each full year of service where age during year is 22 or above, but less than 41
• 1.5 weeks’ pay for each full year of service where age during year is 41+.

However, there is a cap on the weekly wage that you use for the first part of the calculation. Presently it’s £350, which together with a cap of 20 years makes for a maximum statutory redundancy payment of £10,500. Although the figure increases by £10 or £20 each year, there have been rumblings that it ought to receive more than an inflationary adjustment. Sure enough, as has been widely reported, the chancellor has increased the figure to £380. Currently we don’t know when the change will apply (it requires secondary legislation), or if it will apply to the similar calculation of unfair dismissal basic award.

Watch this space.

(if you’re wondering why the figure has an effect on the budget, it’s because DBERR pick up the tab for insolvent employers who can’t pay the statutory redundancy payment to employees – which will be quite a few of them in the coming months)

• Redundancy generally given the downturn, collective consultation and the impact on law firms;
• The British jobs issue at the oil refinery;
• The imminent repeal in April of the dispute resolution procedures, the replacement provisions & the resulting new Acas codes of practice.

 Listen to the podcast here.

The 2003 Enterprise Act was designed to make going into administration easier, quicker and cheaper with the aim to help companies and save jobs. But BBC File On 4 has heard claims that it is now easier for failing companies to dump their debts leaving thousands of creditors and suppliers owed millions of pounds they may never recoup. Julian O’Halloran asks if UK insolvency law could deepen the economic downturn instead of bringing about a recovery.

The programme is available through iPlayer and as an mp3 podcast download for the next week.

• The cap on a week’s pay for Statutory Redundancy Payments, the basic award, and related purposes – up from £330 to £350;
• Maximum compensatory award on a finding of unfair dismissal – up from £63,000 to £66,200;
• Guarantee payment during lay offs – up from £20.40 to £21.50.

The new limits will come into force for dismissals (or the particular relevant event) on or after 1st February 2009. The statutory instrument with the full changes is here.

• The cap on a week’s pay when calculating redundancy payments (or the basic award for unfair dismissal) goes up to £330;
• The maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal is raised to £63,000.

I’m really not sure if the latter should be retained, especially as the corresponding award in discrimination cases is unlimited. If Alf is sacked after thirty years’ graft for sneezing on the MD’s sandwiches, why is he more restricted in his recovery than when Abdul is sacked for his religion?

The other changes are:

• Unfair dismissal minimum awards for certain health & safety, sunday working, Working Time Regs, pension trustee, or certain trade union reasons rises to £4,400;
• … and wrongful expulsion from a trade union bags you a minimum award of £6,900.

All of this applies to dismissals on and after 1st February 2008. The full list of changes can be found here.

If you, a company, are contemplating making 20+ redundancies at one establishment within ninety days, you have to spend at least 30 days in consultation prior to the first dismissal. If it’s 100+ redundancies, it’s 90 days. Fail to do this, and your employees can apply to the tribunal for a “protective award”. I personally have never understood the term – it’s a fine for non-compliance, nothing less. A protective award = 90 days’ pay. So, let’s say you’re making 25-odd employees redundant, which indicates in itself you haven’t bags of cash lying around, if you don’t give ‘em 30 days’ worth of consultation (no matter how little effect it might have on the final result) then you cop for 90 days’ pay to each of them. What’s that? 90 days? But we were only supposed to consult for 30! Tough. It’s a fine. You should have done it properly. This idea, following Susie Radin in 2004 which finally clarified the award as punitive, has been backed up by the EAT. This particular case has been notified all over the employment news-o-sphere, but I suspect it’s simply the first cock-up to be appealed rather than any shift in practice for most tribunals.