Redundancy question - please help

[Lemonsaretheonlyfruit]

Some urgent legal employment advice needed for my friend who has just been made redundant. She is lone parent and money is very tight. I am with her now and trying to support her in any way I can.

She has just been made redundant and offered 2 months pay as a redundancy settlement.

The figure she calculated for 2 months pay (her annual salary divided by 12 ie what she gets at the end of every month) is a higher figure than the 8 weeks pay her company are proposing verbally. In the hard copy settlement agreement they've just proposed a figure rather than specifying a timeframe (8 weeks pay). 'Two months pay' was suggested verbally in their discussion.
Can they do this?
What is the correct way of working this out or is it just a discussion between both parties ? It's a small business rather than a corporate with HR etc. The person who had the conversation with me is the owner's sister and unofficially the HR person in the business.

My friend has been with the business 22 months

Advice / suggestions appreciated. Thanks.

I'm afraid legally your friend is entitled to no redundancy pay at all as she has been employed there less than 2 years, unless her contract entitles her to redundancy pay over and above statutory minimum which would be quite unusual for a small business, so it seems as though the employer is perhaps being generous by offering her anything at all, and quibbling about the difference between 2 months/8 weeks might be unwise. She really needs to check her contract/T&Cs though as it's impossible to advise without knowing what's in there.

I wonder if what is being offered here is actually pay in lieu of notice, what does her contract say about notice, and is it specified in weeks or months?

Also, if she is being asked to sign a settlement agreement (not legally necessary when being made redundant but a lot of companies use as a safeguard), her employer should pay for her to have independent legal advice before signing (at a solicitor of her choice), so she should probably discuss the settlement amount and whether it is reasonable/in line with her contract with them?

"Can they do this?"

Yes, and your friend is free to reject the offer and ask for the two months she was offered, and they are then free to either hold firm, withdraw the offer entirely or increase it. There are no specific entitlements she has other than notice pay, so the rest is negotiation. She's not entitled to redundancy pay, or even to a reason why she is being dismissed, so if they're offering her anything at all it's either very generous or because there is a potential legal vulnerability somewhere. Is there?

You friend should ensure the agreement is worded as a redundancy settlement. If so, it will be tax free up to £30,000 so it should work out at more that 2 months' salary in her pocket anyway,

She also needs to confirm who/what the point of contact is for future reference

The day after she is made redundant, if in UK she needs to apply for contributions based job seekers universal credit ( her redundancy money will not be taken into account until a certain time period)
Apply on www.gov.uk
She will need to attend job centre with identification, P45, letter of Redundancy, CV etc

Get her to start applying for new jobs now

She needs to be paid, any holiday pay

Statutory redundancy pay is also on www.gov.uk