Help needed with redundancy in a small organisation

Hello - I hope you can help. I work with three others for a small charity. The trustees want to work within the law but need a bit of help on two issues.

There is not enough funds to continue with 4 staff and the trustees are issuing redundancy notices to us all. The reasons for this are not in dispute nor are the need for redundancies. They are suggesting two posts are made at lower salaries/hours. We are all invited to apply when we have the deatils.

1. The trustees think it would be fairer if all staff were made redundant and then the new posts would be ring-fenced. The posts are likely to be the more or less the same duties as two existing posts but paid less. Is this allowable or do they only make those who either fail to get the posts or do not reapply redundant. The successful staff vary their contracts. their future redundancy would then presumably be based on the new salary but with continous service - or this a dangerous area?

2. One member of staff is on maternity leave. She did not intend to come back untill after the redundancy date anyway but when she is working out the redundancy notice (which is 4 weeks as she has been with us just over 3 years?) is this at her salary - or SMP (much lower of course).

Any help appreciated.

OWWWW! Stop now.

(a) with the best will in the world (and I do a lot of work for charities), the employees should not be advising the trustees. They are your employers and this is very dangerous for them. What if you give them the wrong advice - deliberately or accidentally? As trustees they are personally liable for the resulting tribunal claim! Which means that if the charoty can't pay (and it obviously can't) then th elegal bills and any ward come from their pockets and their assets. This is particularly important because...

(b) they cannot easily make someone on maternity leave redundant - it is very likely that one of these jobs must be automatically offered to her, leaving only one for the other three of you. And if this doesn't happen they could be a shed load of trouble. Expensive trouble.

Your trustees should go to your local Council for Voluntary Action / Volunatry Action Council and seek advice.

Thanks - that is very good advice. We have requested they take advice as they are not experts but they are ignoring us so far.

The trustees seem to have been using wikipedia and deciding a lot of things that are not legal e.g that we all only need 1 month notice even though one of us has worked with the charity for 20 years and that they do not need to consult us. In asking the questions above I was trying to find out exactly what we as staff needed to consider - I had no intention of advising the trustees but to persuade them that the issues were more complicated than they seem to think.

I can tell you for a fact that 20 years service does not equate to four weeks notice. And that they do need to consult you. They are heading for a terrible and costly amount of pain. For all of you. I suggest that you tell them that (or show them) that in these few lines, as a barrister, I can find three areas of law that they are potentially breaking, and at least two of them are potentially very expensive breaches which will result - absolutely certainly - in a costly award against them as individuals. If they carry on in this vein they will be in an employment tribunal with no defence. There are resources available to help them - they need to use them.

Are the resources you suggest free to charities? If not what sort of charges would we expect for some help?

Thanks ever so much!

If you speak to the CVS, they usually have or have access to free advice. There is often help through the Charity Commission too. There are lots of free resources for charities. Even the local council may be able to help.

Thank you!