Maternity leave and voluntary redundancy

I am currently on Maternity leave which ends in April. In January i was advised by letter and verbal communication from my manager that I was at risk of being made redundant. I do not wish to return to my post therefore i contacted the HR department and informed them that i would like to be considered for voluntary redundancy. They informed me that at that point they were not looking for any voluntary redundancies however i should inform my manager that i was volunteering myself for compulsory redundancy of which i did. I met with my manager the following week and again advised her that i would like to be made redundant, she advised me that there was a strong possibility that this would happen and that in her opinion i should not consider returning to work early from my Maternity Leave. I was told i would receive a decision mid Feb. My manager contacted me and stated that the decision had been made that there would be no redundancies from my team he also stated that as i was on Maternity Leave it was against the law to make me redundant anyway. I have since discovered that 2 of my colleagues have been given compulsory voluntary redundancy and i was never considered for this as i was on Maternity Leave. I think that this is completely unfair - It is not against the law to make someone redundant who is on maternity leave. They used no selection process with regards to who they were going to give redundancy to. Also had i have returned to work in January i would have been on 'equal footings' and a selection process would have had to have been used as my maternity leave would have ended. Are there any laws with regards to selection process'? Legally have my employers done anything wrong? Any advice or comments on my situation would be greatly appreciated, many thanks

Sorry - but this is meaningless. There is no such thing as " compulsory voluntary redundancy". If there are voluntary redundancies then the law does not regulate them - you can apply and they can turn you down, end of story. f they are compulsory then then it is almost impossible to make someone on maternity leave redundant since they have by law to offer you the first choice of jobs. What "might have happened" had you returned to work, is not relevant - you didn't, you had protection and the employer acted entirely appropriately in not making you redundant. The law exists to protect your job - not to give you the right to loose it!

SarEI i am not an expert with regards to the law which was why i posted this thread - I was only asking for advice, no need for you to be rude. Thanks very much for your help

How is it rude to say that the information is meaningless - when that is accurate. It's not employment law - it's English! "Compulsory" and "voluntary" are two entirely different and opposite things - so how can a redundancy be both???? I find it strange that you are here demanding the right to be made redundant whilst on maternity leave - a right that does not exist in law - when most people would find it quite unfair that you are automatically offered a job, regardless of how good or useful you are at your job, whilst other people who may be better are made redundant for no other reason than your right to a job. But your job was not redundant - there are no redudancies at all from your team, you said. So what you mean is that you want to be paid redundancy money to exercise your desire not to return to work, even though neither you nor your colleagues have had any redundancies. That is just downright selfish - there are people being made redundant left right and centre who would desperately like to keep their jobs and who would give a lot for the protection that you have.