Redeployment While On Maternity Leave

[Littlestlass]

I'm looking for a bit of advice from anyone with experience of redeployment or any legal bods out there.

I currently work for the Civil Service and have been advised that at the grade I currently work at, there are 40 too many people in the region employed. Therefore they have decided to make everyone go through a selection process, which basically means we're reapplying for our own jobs (though they say we're aren't!) by filling in a competency based application form, writing 150 words on each competency. Senior managers assess this and if you fail to get through you get put into the "Redeployment Network" and are expected to produce a CV and actively search and apply for jobs, going through interviews etc. They are not looking at people?s appraisals (I?ve worked there 6 years and have always had a top mark on my report and been recommended for a bonus every year).

Given the huge budget cuts the Government is announcing, whether there will be any other jobs is another matter, and while the possibility of redundancy is being denied at the moment, I don't see how this can't happen at some point.

I have been on Maternity Leave since November 2009 and am taking the full year. I checked prior to going on leave into redundancy in relation to Mat Leave (knowing that the Tories were likely to be in power before I went back so cuts were likely) and read that I basically have to be given a role if the outcome is redundancy - i.e. if there are 5 jobs and 6 people, I would automatically have to be given one of the posts. Additionally, I couldn't be made to go through a selection process.

My questions are:

Does this differ if the outcome is redeployment not automatic redundancy?
Can they make me apply for my own post?
If I fail to get through, would they be able to make me apply for jobs?

I am really worrying about this as I have been out of the business for so long that I am completely out of practise at completing competency-based assessments. I've barely had any sleep since DD was born so my concentration is certainly not what it was!!

I feel like I am being put at a disadvantage in many ways, not only because people in work will be given time to do this during the day - I can't realistically attempt this in DD's 45 minutes naps! I have asked all these questions at work and have been told they're consulting a legal rep, but rather than wait for the outcome, they have started the process and my deadline to submit the form to my manager is the 14th. All in all I'm getting very confused and quite stressed about it. Can anyone advise?!?

You can still be made to go through the selection process but must be to see if the job is suitable and not if your better than the others.

Not sure if its different in the redeployment situation as your not made redundant. Technically I suppose they could put you through it but they'd have to guarantee a job at the end.

However depends if this process last until November, not sure how long the guaranteed job extends past end of mat leave.

The jobs are most likely to stay there (unless they move it out of the region which is relatively unlikely) as I'm in a bit of the civil service they can't just scrap. We're applying for the grade not the specific post.

I feel a bit like I'd be in a safer position if people were definately being made redundant - which is mad to be fair.

Disagree with seeyoukay I'm afraid.

You do have extra rights during maternity leave in that if your role is redundant, and there is a suitable alternative vacancy, you must be offered it. In that situation yes as seeyoukay says, you could only be asked to go through a selection process to see if the job is suitable in a non-competitive context.

But this isn't that situation. You would have to argue that the jobs available were vacancies. How that's defined in a maternity leave/redundancy situation is debatable, and I tend to come down on the 'err on the side of caution' side of the fence, applying a very loose definition to the word 'vacancy'.

But in a situation where there are no specific jobs being defined for you to apply for in some kind of restructuring, where it's literally 'we need less of you', then I think you might struggle to argue that there was an 'available vacancy' tbh. Which means I think it would be fine to ask you to go through exactly the same procedure everyone else is going through.

If they were presenting you with a new structure, and outlining the jobs that were available in that structure, so you were applying for actual jobs, that would be easier, and if those jobs were different from your current job, easier still. But from what you've said it doesn't sound like that really.

Once it's all done and dusted, if you are redundant from your existing post and there is an suitable alternative vacancy available, at that point you should be offered it in a non-competitive context - ie if there's something in the 'redeployment network' that would fit, you should get it.

Just wanted to say that I sympathise with you littlestlass. My company has undergone a similar restructure and a few months ago (11 months into my mat leave) I had to re-apply for a role in the new structure. I too found it extremely stressful doing this after being out of the business for so long and trying to fit in doing a massive amount of work around 2 small children in only 2 weeks whilst everyone at work did it in work time. I got very little support from work. It seemed very unfair to me that I was expected to do this whilst not working. I wish you lots of luck.x

Thanks to everyone with the advice and comments - sorry I haven't said thank you earlier. DD not playing ball with sleeping and getting majorly stressed with work!

They have decided that to not make me go through the redeployment exercise would be discriminatory against other staff in work but that if I end up in the redeployment pool they have to give me the first job over and above everyone else.... which is surely discriminatory?!? I seriously don't understand what the difference is

Anyway, now trying to write competencies on a form when I can't remember anything about anything and the only way I'm getting anything down is using something I wrote for my manager so he could do my report before I went on Mat Leave. It's a good job I was organised once