Written notice of redundancy

My wife has been told verbally on March 02nd that she will be redundant from April 02nd . Her line manager has requested this in writing but HR keep fobbing her off. Is it mandatory or legal that she should have been informed in writing on March 02nd ? Should this letter state reasons for dismissal ?She cannot begin appeals procedure until she gets this letter.
The three candidates for redundancy were assessed on a points scale ( qualifications .attendance etc., )and she was apparently marked less than the other two in spite of the fact that the negative points raised in the assessment total were not mentioned or warned against in her staff appraisal in 2008 .She has been employed for nearly three years and has had only one appraisal which was good without negative comments.
Any advice and guidance would be appreciated . Thanks . “ LABJAB “

Hi Labjab

Notice can be given verbally but it is not advisable as it can more easily be disputed by the employee. The employer is obliged, however, to provide written reasons for dismissal if the employee requests it, which must be provided within 14 days of the request being made.

I wonder, however, if the statutory dismissal proceudre has been followed (assuming that this is not a larger scale redundancy for which collective consutation applies). If not, then this could be an automatially unfair dismissal (please see my guide for details: http://www.etherington.co.uk/redundancy.shtml)

Your wife should have been given the opportunity to challenge the selection criteria during consultation and the scores at the dismissal meeting. If not then she should raise this at the appeal.

I hope that is of some help

Pete