Employment Contract

[Bingo99]

My company are relocating me c30 miles away which I intend to accept. In the original employment contract, I have an 8 week notice period. They have advised that, should I decide to take redundancy, this would be reduced to 4 weeks, meaning that the money they would have to pay me is reduced.

Can they legally do this??

Thanks,

[Maydup]

I thought the contractual notice still applied in a redundancy situation. But the best thing to do is to give ACAS a ring, they will advise you fully and for free. See here

http://m.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1650

[murraymints]

Since you intend going ..does it matter ?

[Peter Pedant]

The question you asked is:

If I take redundancy on a contract that says there is an 8 wk notice period, can they say it is now 4 wks... ?

No is the short answer.

How long have you been employed with them ? If it is less than 24 mo I think you have no rights at all - they can just lay you off. If it is longer then the redundancy pay is one week for each month you have been employed.....with a cap of course.

before you ring ACAS which I think is excellent advice,
read this:
https://www.gov.uk/employer-relocation-your-rights

[Maydup]

Peter - if its less than 24 months they can lay off without facing a tribunal, but they still have to give statutory and contractual notice.

[boxtops]

I thinkk that the 24-month period has been reduced to a year - something similar happened to us a while back. I could be wrong.

[Bingo99]

Thanks everyone, good feedback. Will get in touch with ACAS tomorrow.

[buildersmate]

In advising you everyone seems to have neglected to ask if you are merely being offered statutory redundancy amounts, or more.
Provided you are being offered at least four weeks of the statutory rate and assuming you don't have a clause in your contract offering you specific sums of redundancy pay that are now being breached, I don't see ACAS will tell you different.