To claim a statutory redundancy payment (SRP) during lay-off or short time working, an employee must have two years’ continuous employment, have been laid off or on short time working for at least four consecutive weeks, or at least six weeks in any 13-week period, must serve written notice of their intention to claim which you don’t contest and then resign with due notice within specified time limits. Our response letter accepts the employee’s resignation and confirms whether there’s been compliance with the statutory provisions.
Claiming redundancy pay
An employee must follow a number of steps to claim an SRP during lay-off or short time working. In summary, they must:
For the purposes of this scheme, a week of lay-off occurs where no work is provided for the employee and they receive no pay (other than statutory guarantee pay) and a week of short time working takes place where the employee receives less than half a week’s pay for work done in that week.
Resignation requirements
To secure entitlement to an SRP, the employee’s resignation must be both with the correct amount of notice and submitted at the appropriate time. The amount of notice must be their contractual notice period or one week’s notice, whichever is greater. Assuming you’ve not served a counter-notice, their notice of resignation, which doesn’t need to be in writing, must be given within three weeks after the end of the seven-day period from service of their notice of intention to claim.
Letter contents
Our Reply to Resignation during Lay-Off or Short Time Working acknowledges the employee’s notice of intention to claim and resignation letter and accepts their resignation on the notice period given. There are then three alternative paragraphs:
Our letter also assumes that the lay-off or short time working will continue during the employee’s notice period. You’ll need to amend this if either the employee is to return to work or is to be placed on garden leave during notice.