Redundancy after restructure

[imiss]

My company went through a restructure earlier this year. It was handled horribly, I was on mat leave at the time and they essentially told me I had to return from maternity leave early to competitively interview for 1 position against someone I previously managed. After speaking to ACAS and pregnant then screwed they conceded they couldn't do this and offered me another position. No longer a manager, two 'grades' lower, less pay and 4 days a week from full time. They continued to argue I wasn't part of the redundancy process as I had a position secured despite it being completely different to the role I held previously. Again not very willingly they conceded that I would be given 4 weeks to decide if the role was for me after returning where I could still take my redundancy payment if I didn't want to continue.

I stayed, my partners self employed and with two children under 3 and a new mortgage I needed a regular income. Now I'm working again I can see that my previous role has basically been divided up between the two managers in charge of the restructure and a third person, they have all retained some of my old responsibilities for themselves. There is a planned outsourcing of work which will affect my workload further and I can see there will be no need for me at some point in the near future. This was known (although not the full extent) when I accepted this new role but they advised my role would be transitioning into something different, which I can now see is not happening. My old duties are still needed after the outsourcing. Things I was told I'd be responsible for have gone elsewhere, I feel like this role was missold to me, it has no longevity. It's worth noting there were zero performance issues before maternity leave, if anything the opposite was true and I had received a pay rise and bonus for exceeding.

My questions are - if I were to be made redundant would it be based on my old pay and hours, or the new role with less pay and less hours even if only held for a few months?

Is there anything I should be doing to protect myself? I feel I have been stripped of everything I had worked hard for and placed in a 'made up' role as I called them out on their mishandling of the initial restructure.

I couldn’t fully follow the story about what happened earlier this year at the end of your maternity. It does sound like things might not have been handled properly, however I think you would be time barred on raising any claim based on that now.

So to your actual question, unfortunately yes your redundancy entitlements would be based on your salary and hours at the time of your leaving.

Sounds like they mishandled it completely before, but that was effectively 'resolved', as in, you came to an agreement and have got on with it on those terms.

That doesn't necessarily mean you can't claim about that stuff - if you bring a discrimination claim it can include multiple events including historical ones as long as they are part of a pattern of discrimination - a series of events.

You say you can now see your previous role has been divided up. That's not necessarily a problem; lots of redundancies result in a reduction in number of employees but the tasks either partially or completely still being done. However obviously if they explained what was happening to your old duties in different terms, that might indicate a problem.

Redundancy entitlements are based around compensating for loss of future earnings, so are always based on current salary in circumstances where there has been a change.

If they do start a new redundancy process, it would probably be worth seeking some proper legal advice with more detail so that an assessment can be made about whether you have a series of events which could be discriminatory and therefore a claim.