Genre: Legal

1 . The employer must draw up a plan to decide who will be kept on and who will be made redundant and why . 2 . The employer must inform the workforce as soon as possible , so they have a chance put forward alternatives or apply for other jobs with the current employer or with another employer . 3 . The employer should consider any proposals that the employee's or their representatives make as an alternative to redundancy . 4 . The employer should decide as soon as possible how many employees will be made redundant . Consulting 1 . The employer must consult the employee's representatives ( this includes Unions ) if 20 or more people are going to be made redundant . 2 . The employer must discuss alternatives to redundancy and the selection criteria for redundancy . 3 . The employer can carry on the redundancy procedures whilst the consultation is going on ( for example , sending out redundancy notices to the effected employees ) . However , the employer should not issue redundancy notices before he has had a chance to consult properly . 4 .. If the employer does not consult properly the Employment Tribunal can make the employer pay a ' Protective Award ' . This states that the employer must keep the employees on and must pay their wages for a certain amount of time ( whether they actually remain working or not ) . The length of this Protective Award period is usually fairly short . Department of Trade and Industry The employer must consult the Department of Trade and Industry ( D. T. I. ) 30 days before dismissal if they are going to make between 20 - 99 employees redundant . Or 90 days if over 100 are to be dismissed . One of the reasons for this is so that the DTI can compile accurate employment statistics and records . Selection Procedure If a group of employees are selected for redundancy the employer must show what type of work they do and why the demand for that work has decreased or stopped completely . If the amount of work has decreased so that only some of the employees within a group are selected , the employer must show how they picked those unlucky ones . The employer must show in detail the selection procedure and criteria . This can range from " last in first out " to a scoring system , with the employer giving points for certain job skills . The selection criteria should not be based upon an individual's view of each employee ( for example , what the personnel manager thinks ) Once the criteria has been agreed it should be kept to . The employer should also try and agree the selection criteria with the employees' representatives or Union . The selection procedure and criteria can not be based upon unfair reasons such as : Trade Union membership or activity . If the selection criteria is based upon Race , Disability or Sex the effected employee can claim under Unfair Dismissal or the relevant discrimination law . The employer must consult each effected employee before dismissal notices are handed out , so that there is a chance of real consultation and time for the employee to respond . The selected group may change due to the consultation process .