First post@ Effective date for redundancy

I worked in a large organisation in a senior role for just under nine years. Consultation for redundancies began three months ago. On the last day of the consultation I was made redundant and left the company immediately as my notice was being paid in lieu.

My question relates to my effective date of redundancy. My employer is using the last day of the consultation period as the effective date, but I have argued that the date must be either the end of the statutory notice period (eight weeks) or the last day of my contractual notice period.

Either way takes me over the nine years' service and makes a significant difference to my severance pay and bonus entitlement. Could someone please confirm how the effective date should be arrived at.

Sorry - your argument is wrong. You've said so yourself! You were paid PILON, and therefore the EDT is the day that you left work. Pay in lieu of notice? In other words - no notice applies. You should have refused the PILON - it cannot be enforced, and if it is then you could have made a claim for associated loss, but if you did not dispute it at the time it would be hard to make a case after the event. But in law the EDT is the date your employment finishes and only includes notice if it is served - so gardening leave would have counted twoards service but PILON does not.

Could you explain the following on the direct.gov.uk website, particularly the third bullet. This explicitly refers to my case:

Relevant end date for your years of service

The number of weeks’ redundancy pay you should receive is worked out up until a set ‘relevant date’. It is important to know when this date is so you can work out how many full years of continuous service you have.

The 'relevant date' can be a number of dates. In most cases it will be the date when your employment ends (eg the last day of your notice period). In some situations it will be different:

•if your employer gave you a statutory notice period until a set date, then changed your notice period to finish earlier - the relevant date will be when your notice should have finished before it changed

•if you are on a trial period for another position within the company and your employer lets you go because the work is not suitable - the relevant date would be when your original contract ended before the trial period

•if you do not have a statutory notice period (eg because of a payment in lieu arrangement) the relevant date would be when your employment contract would have ended if you had a statutory notice period.

Furthermore, the company gave me the correct redundancy statement but then changed its mind after I had left its employment. Another employee's redundancy date who left in exactly the same situation and at the same time was given a later calculation date.

There is a difference between contractual PILON arrangements and non-contractual arrangements. From what you have said yours appear to be non-contractual - so the comparable situation would be to someone dismissed with pay in lieu of notice, for whom the EDT is theuir final working date - and this is the date used by ET's to determine claims within time. But I am concerned if a different calculation has been used for someone else unless their contract is different - in which case you could argue custom and practice if the employer normally does this and there is no reason for the difference.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. There was provision in my contract for pilon. I assume that makes its contractual.

Ah - is it provision for (in other words, at the employers discretion) or a right? If the latter, then you certainly do have grounds to complain - it might be worth challenging why others have got the extra entitlement and you haven't, as I said, because that would certainly indicate that such was a "normal practice" and had not be applied in one instance. Worth continuing to argue. Much as it might make a difference to you - a legal case would cost the employer far more, even if they won.

I think the contract says something along the lines that the employer reserves the right to pay me lieu of notice. I am keen to pursue this because I am not convinced that they actually know what they're doing. They have made many mistakes and this is now my fourth severance statement (reducing the amount indicated in the third statement). Again, thank you for the time you have given me.

Am I correct in assuming you are female? And would the others by any god-given chance be men? If so you could suggest that it is sex discrimination. I doubt it would fly as a case, but the mere threat of it may concentrate minds! As I said, a legal case, whatever the circumstances here, would cost them more, and if they are politely and nicely reminded of this it may not be worth the argument!