Voluntary Redundancy

I was given the opportunity to aply for either a reduction in hours or Voluntary Redundancy in March of this year. I could not afford to take a further cut in hours as these had been cut in the last 2 years from 34 hours to 19.5 hours per week and being the sole breadwinner if my hours were cut to less than 16 hours I would not be able to get WT Credit (I am disabled) so only need to work 16 hours.

However, my employer accepted by voluntary redundancy and I was given a leave date of 30th April 2011 with garden leave to run until 31st May 2011.

However, the week before I was due to finish I was telephoned by our practice manager to say they had deferred my redundancy pending a new tender for work being dealt with. Obviously I was very pleased with this.

However, then last week I was asked to attend a meeting with the Practice Manager who advised me that the tender had not been successful. I then said to her "so does that mean I am being made redundant then" - to which she replied - "yes I am sorry.

However, two points arise :-

1) The letter I have received from her still refers to voluntary redundancy - would I not need to vol;unteer for this again

2) I have since found out that a person who is currently on maternity leave and who is due back on 1st August will then be doing my job as a Residential Conveyancer as well as that of a Commercial Solicitor.

Can anyone advise if I would have a claim here please

I look forward to receiving any response asap.

No you don't.

Voluntary redundancy was agreed between both parties - they agreed a postponement only under specified circumstances; you agreed to this; and those circumstances happened but did not change anything. You volunteered for redundancy - you cannot claim that you have been unfairly dismissed when you volunteered for it and agreed to it.

Nobody said your work was redundant - they said your job was. So there is a redundancy if the post disappears, but it is perfectly ok for the work to be done by someone else. But I return to the point - you volunteered for redundancy. You did not need to. You could have refused, and had you done so the employer would have struggled to impose a cut, making you compulsarily redundant. That may or may not have been a better position for you, I don't know. But tyou didn't - you asked them to let you go. They have. There is no way in law that you can complain about them agreeing to what you asked for. Sorry.

Thanks for your quick response as I said previously the only option i had really was to take voluntary redundancy as I could not afford a further cut in my hours as I would have been over the limit to claim benefits but not earn enough to survive

anyway thanks for your response