Reduction in hours/seniority - capability issue?

[Beamur]

Just reposted this as I'd put it in the wrong topic.
I've been speaking with my Mum, she manages a shop and has had a meeting with her Area Manager today.
Apparently some of her staff have approached him and said they don't think she is capable of doing her job, he has now said he wants her to stop doing her job and take another in a different shop, but not as a manager and is proposing a 50% cut in her hours.
Is this legal?
During the meeting they spoke about some of the procedures and she admitted she doesn't understand them properly, but other than that no no warnings, no feedback from appraisals.
However, saying all that, I think my Mum is struggling at work and the alternative offer has its merits, but the cut in hours and pay would be punitive.
Can anyone advise me of her rights in this and what we should be saying back to her employer? Thanks.

Anyone?

Without knowing the company and their policies it would be hard to give proper advice but I would say no it isn't right. Has your mum looked at her contract does it say anything about disciplinary procedures?

I would think there will be company policies on warnings regarding poor performance and putting plans in place to help your mum get better not just remove her. Is there a HR dept she could speak to?

There isn't an HR department so to speak, it's quite a small company.
I'll ask her to have a look at her contract and see what it says about that though.
The root of the problem though is that, through no fault of her own (chemo) she now has a bad short term memory and really struggles to learn new things so training probably won't help as I doubt she will remember it - it is also affecting her performance at work.
I suspect the comment that she is not up to her job is probably true, I think she has been delegating a lot because she cannot do it herself.
She doesn't want to stop work and I think at her age and with this memory problem she would find it really hard to get another job (she's 60).

They can't force her to move to the other shop no.

However if they feel its a capability grounds they can commence disciplinary procedures against her that would ultimately if no improvement in ability result in her losing her job.

She needs to be honest with herself if she can't do the job she can't do the job. If there are changes they can make they should try to do them but it depends what they are.

How long has she been there?
What does her contract say about changes in hours/location etc?

In a general sense normally they can't just enforce a change to her terms and conditions without at least jumping through some hoops and consulting/having a disciplinary/capability procedure etc, no.

On the other hand if she agrees she's not up to the job what does she want to happen? If the hours are not a problem does she just want to take a non-managerial job but on the same hours she's on now? Is there such a thing available?

Basically they are not going about this the right want and seem to be cutting a lot of corners but I think in terms of deciding how to respond your Mum needs to be clear exactly how she would like to resolve this problem.

not going about it the right way

I think that she admits that there are parts of her job she just can't do anymore - she cannot get to grips with the newly computerised systems and I don't think any amount of training will help, she has a medical issue with memory retention and will struggle to learn new things.
Having spoken with her more today, my impression is that the management have probably have known for a while what the situation is and are only really acting on it because the staff have made it an issue - which is fair enough as I think they have been doing large chunks of her job.
It sounds like the meeting she had with the manager was very gentle and quite supportive, but I think she needs to ask more questions about what happens next.
No unions either, which is a shame as I think she could really do with someone to support her and ask the right questions.
Thanks for your comments though, it's helped me to talk this through with her.