Redundancy & childcare costs

[mrsmindcontrol]

Hello all, I'm after advice for a friend if that's ok.
She has just come to the end of her maternity leave with DC3. She attended all her keeping in touch days & agreed in writing on a date for her return to work. She then arranged childcare for her 2 youngest children, incurring registration fees & a months costs upfront with the nursery.
Lo and behold, the week before she was due back, she received notice of redundancy. Naturally she cancelled her childcare arrangements incurring a cancellation fee but wasn't able to recoup the upfront costs she'd already paid.

Her former employers are refusing up contribute towards the childcare costs which seems incredibly unfair given they were incurred on the basis of a written confirmation of her return to work.
Any idea where she stands here? Is it worth her while pursuing this?

That does sound really unfair! I don't know where she stands legally on this, but it may be worth calling ACAS for free advice: www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1461

Even if they don't know the answer, they'll be able to tell you who to get in touch with.

Hope this helps!

An employer isn't required to consider (or refund) either season tickets or childcare costs.

A notice of redundancy can come at any time, and should be driven by business needs. Have her employers actually done this properly though - how many are being made redundant, was there a consultation period and what criteria were used to select those actually made redundant?

Asleep, if she has not yet returned from maternity leave, she has protected rights to priority selection for other posts. Is anything similar likely to come up? Has she been in to talk about this?

Agree with scaevola.