Job up for redundancy worked for 15 years in a school they want to outsource my role to a external company no tupe offered!

[Andyls]

Company want to outsource my job to a local company due to financial reasons, yet has over 3 millon cash avalible on companies house. Been in same job 15 years only person who does my role. Tupe not been offered!

Felt for a while they want to force me out and this the way the are doing so not a genuine redudancy.

Even if was a genuine redundancy I should be offered tupe to the company who will be taking over my role due to change of service provision?

How much cash your employer has is not relevant. They can outsource any role if they want. However, it sounds like TUPE applies in your situation. If that is the case and they dismiss you or make you redundant once the outsourcing takes effect, you will have a claim for unfair dismissal.

It is only a genuine redundancy if there is less need for the job you do. If there is no reduction in the need for your role, it is not a genuine redundancy.

You can contact ACAS for advice; however I’d also be asking for a redundancy calculation. You might find that is your much preferred option. TUPE only has so many benefits really.

Hi the letter says for financial reasons can they then decide its because there is less need for my role?

Would it be better for me to bring up tupe and it been denied or not bring up tupe if i want to claim for unfair dismissal?

Do you work for an academy? I work in education luckily still a local authority school but the education system is absolutely shocking!!! Sorry to hear this is happening to you.

Yep, we joined a mat a few years ago. The mat has always outsourced my role in other schools since before we joined. Now we've been there 2 years the want to outsource my role in school to the company the mat has used since it started!

Shocking my youngest child’s school is now a mat and a lot of changes have been made some good some bad. They appear to have a lot of money from the schools that are Mats around me.

What is your role?

One possible financial reason for transferring to another provider is that there is less need for your role.

You should raise the question of TUPE with your employer and see what they say.

It looks like the outsourced
company doe not have a roll for you hence redundancy. Tupe would only be offered if you were going to work for the outsourced company.

Tupe only covers you at the point of transfer anyway, after that the new organisation can get around changing your terms…as I have just found out moving to a new MAT!!

HR bod here

You don't have a right to tupe if the new employer doesn't need you.
In that Situation you would be entitled to redundancy but you can ask during consultation why your role is no longer needed etc and theoretically you can challenge it but if they've already worked out that your role is no longer required then it's not likely to go far.

They can split your duties amongst other staff in the new organization and it still counts as redundancy eg if 6 staff added 1/6 of your duties to their existing roles.
So it's not just whether the work is still being done or not.

Thankyou for your reply, my job role will still be done both remotely and on site at the school just by the private company my role is been outsourced too?

The private company already carrys out my role in other schools in the trust both onsite and remotely. They have done this since 2018!

This is wrong. The law is that, if a function is being outsourced, the employees that carry out that function transfer under TUPE. It doesn't matter whether the new employer already has staff that can carry out the role.

Of course it does. New employer may end up with too many staff so can do a post transfer redundancy.

It is unfair dismissal if the new employer makes the transferred staff redundant. The only way it would not be unfair is if there is a valid ETO reason for the redundancies or the redundancies are not related to the transfer, and the transferred staff are treated equally with existing staff, including in the selection process.

Well yeah, that's what ETO is for

Does anyone know although I work in the same school, should the trust be revewing the jobs of all staff in the trust or just myself?

After all my work contract is with the trust not the individual school?

If you are the only person at your school doing the job that is being outsourced, you should be transferred to the new provider under TUPE. If there is a reduced requirement for that work to be done at your school, the redundancy pool will only have you in it. The fact your contract is with the trust is irrelevant in that situation. The only way people doing the same job at other schools would come into it is if the trust decided there was a reduced requirement across all schools so that, instead of needing 1 bottle washer in each of their 10 schools, they want to have 5 bottle washers covering all 10 schools between them.

I'm the only person in the trust who does my role or anything related to my role.

My role in other schools in carried out by the external company they are replacing my role with and has been since the trust formed 5 years ago.

Are you doing governance by any chance? - this seems to keep getting outsourced.

I used to be a school governor and it really opened my eyes to how funding is used on schools , and how vulnerable the Academy system is to exploitation- money which should be being spent on the kids paying extortionate salaries for academy corporate staff, absolutely winds me up.

Re your situation OP I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone on the upper management of the MAT has an interest in the external company who provides the staff.

If you have been there 15 years I would take the redundancy package and run to be honest OP.

I happen to know the son in law of the CEO works for the external company!

You should phone ACAS, as mentioned above, and take some advice from them.