Redundancy rights

If your job is at risk of redundancy, you have the right to be consulted, to be selected fairly, to be offered suitable alternative work if there is any, and to statutory redundancy pay once you have two years’ continuous service. For redundancies on or after 6 April 2026, statutory pay is based on a week’s pay capped at £751, and the maximum statutory payment is £22,530. Many public sector employers pay more under their own schemes.

What counts as redundancy

Redundancy is a form of dismissal. It happens when your employer:

• closes the business or the place where you work
• needs fewer people to do work of a particular kind

In the public sector that usually means a restructure, a service closure or merger, a funding cut, or falling pupil numbers at a school. If the work you do is still needed and someone else is hired to do it, the dismissal may not be a genuine redundancy.

Consultation

Before making you redundant, your employer must consult you individually. It has to tell you why your post is at risk and how people were selected, and it has to listen to your suggestions for avoiding the redundancy.

If 20 to 99 people are to be made redundant at one establishment within 90 days, collective consultation with a recognised union (or elected representatives) must start at least 30 days before the first dismissal. For 100 or more, it must start at least 45 days before. A tribunal can make a protective award if collective consultation is skipped, and the maximum doubled from 6 April 2026 under the Employment Rights Act 2025. The Act also changes the collective consultation threshold, which the government lists for 2027 with no date set.

Public sector restructures usually go further than the law requires. NHS trusts, councils and Civil Service departments generally have organisational change policies agreed with unions that set timescales, ring-fencing and redeployment rules. Read yours as soon as a restructure is announced.

Selection and alternative work

Selection must be fair and objective. Common criteria include skills, qualifications, attendance records and disciplinary records. Some criteria can be discriminatory because they disadvantage people with a protected characteristic, for example attendance scores that count disability-related absence, or criteria that count hours worked against part-time staff.

Your employer must look for suitable alternative work and offer it to you. If you accept a different job, you get a statutory trial period in the new role (gov.uk gives its length). Leave during the trial because the job is unsuitable and you keep your right to redundancy pay. Unreasonably refuse a suitable offer and you can lose it.

Large public employers often keep redeployment registers that give at-risk staff first refusal on vacancies. If you are pregnant or on maternity, adoption or shared parental leave, you have priority for suitable alternative vacancies.

Statutory redundancy pay

You need at least two years’ continuous service. The amount depends on your age during each complete year of service:

Age during the year of service	Pay for each complete year
Under 22	Half a week’s pay
22 to 40	One week’s pay
41 and over	One and a half weeks’ pay

Only the last 20 years of service count, and a week’s pay is capped at £751 for redundancies on or after 6 April 2026. That makes the maximum statutory payment £22,530.

Say you are 45, have worked for a council for eight years since age 37, and earn £600 a week. Four years fall in the 22 to 40 band (four weeks’ pay) and four years at 41 or over (six weeks’ pay). That comes to ten weeks’ pay, or £6,000, before any enhanced scheme.

Up to £30,000 of redundancy pay can be paid tax-free. Notice pay, holiday pay and other earnings paid on leaving are taxed as normal, and the redundancy pay tax guide explains the split.

Public sector redundancy schemes

Most public sector employers pay more than the statutory minimum. The NHS has a redundancy scheme in the Agenda for Change handbook. Councils can pay enhanced amounts under local government regulations, and the Civil Service has the Civil Service Compensation Scheme. Each has its own formula, caps and pension rules, so ask HR for a written estimate.

Service with a previous public employer may count. For statutory redundancy pay, service with certain public bodies (such as councils, schools and NHS bodies) can be treated as continuous under a special order, and NHS terms count previous NHS service for redundancy. The continuous service guide explains the rules and the gaps that break them.

Time off and notice

With two years’ service, you can take reasonable paid time off during your notice to look for work or arrange training. You are also entitled to your notice period or pay in lieu. The notice periods guide has the minimums.

Challenging a redundancy

If you think the redundancy was not genuine, the selection was unfair or consultation was skipped, use the appeal your employer offers and talk to your union. Unfair dismissal claims currently need two years’ service, which falls to six months for dismissals from 1 January 2027. Discrimination claims need no qualifying service. You must contact ACAS for early conciliation before a tribunal claim, and the time limit for most claims has been six months since 1 October 2026.