Redundancy payments (insolent company)

I was laid off from a permanent position at the start of a month with no pay because lack of work. Near the end of the month I managed to get a contract (temp job) to fill in because of no pay.At the end of the month my company that I had been permanent with went into voluntary liquidation. Seven weeks on I am still in my contract job. I was sent forms by the liquidators to claim for redundancy payment through the government scheme. The redundancy payments office has sent me a form to fill in because they believe the work was transferred from the liquidated company to an associated company. The questions on the form relates to my current employment and if I was offered a job by the company associated with the liquidated company, which I was never offered. As I started my contracting job before the company went into liquidating, will I still be eligible for redundancy pay through the government scheme? I never resigned from the laid off position. The contract job was suppose to be a stop gap job until my permanent company's work picked up.

I would have preferred not to answer this.

I am afraid that my reading of what you have said is that you have in effect resigned from your position and the RPS may now refuse to pay out. Notwithstanding the fact that I fully understand why you have done this, I think that the fact that you took other employment is going to create huge problems. The law is very clear about the circumstances in which you are deemed to be redundant, and you do not meet those criteria - after being laid off for four weeks you could have applied to your employer for this to be a redundancy, but it appears that instead you went and got another job; or you could have been made redundant (or offered alternative employment with the associated company) by the liquidator - but you were already in other employment by that time. I am afraid you will just have to fill in the form (truthfully - lest you be tempted otherwise - because they have access to HMRC records) and see what they say, but you may have blown it, I'm afraid.

I did request they make me redundant or take me back on with a least 13 weeks continuous paid employment as I understand the law is, but I received no reply. I was notified by e-mail a couple of days later that the company had gone into voluntary liquidation. I was still employed by them, all but not being paid. In my opinion this was forced dismissal by the back door. Where does it state you can't have more than one job. What about MPs who are directors of this and that while being an MP?

You can have more than one job - but you cannot have two at the same time as each other. I am sorry but at the time that you took the other job you were still in employment, and unless there was no overlap in the time of day that the two jobs were due to be worked, you resigned. You didn't give anyone a chance to answer you - You were laid off at/near the beginning of the month and took the new job at the end of the month - that is only four weeks in between, so you couldn't hardly have sent in the letter asking for redundancy, never mind had an answer in that time. I assume since you know about the law on redundancy during lay off that the employer had the contractual right to lay off without pay - so the breach of contract was, in law, committed by you. I really am sorry - I do understand... but I can't change the law to suit. I am afraid that you will have to wait and see what the RPS say, but given that you had already obtained alternative employment before being made redundant I simply cannot see how they can interpret it any differently - the are a government agency and must also abide by the laws as they are set down.