Redundancy - changing at risk numbers after scoring?

[ShadowStone]

Trying to keep this vague to avoid it being too identifiable:

Redundancies are happening at work and we are part way through the consultation period. We were informed which departments were potentially affected, and number of employees who would be put at risk at the start of the consultation period.

Scoring criteria have been agreed, and line managers have a deadline of friday to complete scoring for employees in at risk pools.

In my department, we were told that x number of employees in 4 different seniority grades would be affected, with numbers at risk split equally between the 4 grades (proportions of "at risk" ranging from 1/2 to 1/7 between grades).

We have now been told that at risk numbers in our department will increase - either doubling or trebling. When our employee rep asked the senior managers in the meeting for an exact number, he was told that they hadn't decided yet. They also said that they hadn't decided how the extra at risk roles will be split between seniority grades. They have said that they will decide on the exact number and split of the extra at risk roles next week, after they get our scores from our line manager (who didn't know anything about numberr increasing until our employee rep told him).

This feels very dodgy to all of us, and we're concerned that the senior management will base number of redundancies in each grade on scoring rather than a decision that i.e. there are 5 too many employees in grade 3.

Can management do it this way round? Or is it as dodgy legally as it feels to us? One of my colleagues thinks this could be construed as constructive dismissal?

Anyone?

Seems strange. What is the actual reason for redundancies, is it cost cutting or changes in work/similar? What was the reason given for the increase in numbers? Are the employees on different grades doing the same job?

The reason for the redundancies is a big downturn in workload. No major upturn likely till Q3 or Q4 at earliest.

The reason given for increasing numbers is that the company has not won work they were hoping to win about now. This doesn't explain why they weren't clear about worst case numbers at the start of the consultation period or why they won't define how they plan to split at risk roles between grades.

Re. Grades - as a general rule, employees at higher grades are competent and capable of doing work done by lower grades, but they cost the client more and are usually more usefully occupied focussing on the harder stuff.
Employees at lower grades may be able to do part of the work done by higher grades depending on experience.