Secondment issues

[Loveluella]

Hello, after a little advice from any employment law people please

I've been speaking to a friend who accepted a secondment from one area of their company to another.

Their substantive post has now been withdrawn and they've been advised they have to stay in the secondment role or resign.

There has been no consultation period at all throughout this.

From my basic understanding, surely there should have been secondment terms outlined and a consultation re withdrawing the role?

Thanks in advance!

What do you mean ‘withdrawn’?

Yes it would be usual and sensible for the terms and conditions of the secondment, including right to return to substantive role and what happens if that role is redundant, set out beforehand.

Does your friend have nothing at all?

The game-changer is whether they have the secondment T&Cs in writing from their employer, as any changes like this are far more easy to verify if it's captured in a document.

They are within their rights to decline your friend a redundancy because they're offering them employment. It may not be what they want to do, but it's still a role, and one they've taken on willing (i.e. it isn't a random job they don't have skills for).

Presumably if they were attracted to the secondment, it must have been on the same grade or higher (in which case, an "acting up" increment is often awarded for the duration of the secondment).

If the secondment role is at a higher rate/grade, she should definitely argue to remain on the higher rate on a permanent basis if they want her to stay in that role.

one they've taken on willingly

sorry about the mixedup "they" and "she" - hopefully you can make head n tail of it. The heat must be getting to me

Their substantive post has now been withdrawn
Do you mean withdrawn to her or stopped to exist? If the former, she might have a course of a tion, although most terms are that they have to offer a, similar role, not forcibly the one they were on before. If the latter, they are offering her a reasonable alternative since she's done that role, so again, it is lawful that they don't offer redundancy.

Sorry I didn't get a notification of responses!

The substantive role has been withdrawn as in the team has been disbanded. As he was in a seconded role at that time, he was not party to any consultation. I assumed he'd still need to be??

It sounds like the employer has handled this badly. If the original role was redundant then they can offer suitable alternative employment, it sounds like that's effectively what they've done but without following the right processes. Does your friend think the alternative employment
is suitable? If you google 'suitable alternative employment' there's some guidance on it.

Would they prefer to have been made redundant?

Secondments aren’t a legal ‘thing’, so in the absence of any terms and conditions in writing around the secondment (duration, return to substantive post, what happens in the event of redundancy), it’s not 100% clear whether he should have been included in consultation or not.

However, I would question whether involving him would have made any difference at all, given they’ve disbanded the whole team. It’s not like his role was selected for redundancy in his absence and if he’d been involved he could have raised concerns about the selection criteria.

Therefore he has two options. Either remain in the new post, or argue that the new post doesn’t constitute a ‘suitable alternative’ and that he should therefore be offered redundancy.

I imagine it might be very challenging to convincingly argue that a role he is already doing is not suitable for him.

Thank you! They have handled it terribly, I think the frustration is the rest of the team have gone to a much more 'suitable' role but that wasn't offered to him and is now no longer an option. Appreciate the advice!

That doesn’t sound very fair as such, however if including him in selection for the other roles would have potentially meant someone being redundant, whereas doing it this way means they all stay in work, you can see how that ended up happening- he was already in a job.

I agree it’s valid for him to be peeved, but it doesn’t sound like there’s anything legally wrong.