Urgent advice please re redundancy rights

[Daley]

Hi,

 

One of my clients is getting made redundant. His place of work is closing down at the end of September and he is currently in his notice period. Now, according to ACAS, employees in this situation are allowed 'reasonable time off, up to 40% of the working week, on full pay' to look for other work, attend interviews/training etc to help them find alternative employment.

 

My client currently has a self employed role which he does alongside his soon-to-be-no-longer employed position. He has only been able to do bits and bobs of self-employed work due to his employed position committments but obviously now wants to increase his volumes.

 

My question is, is he allowed time off to do more of the self-employed stuff which will undoubtably increase his future employment opportunities?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Daley

[elche]

As ACAS have rightly told you, an employee with 2 years service, under formal notice of redundancy, is entitled to reasonable paid time off to look for new employment or to make arrangements for training for future employment (ERA 1996, s.52)

 

I would read the above right on the ordinary definition of the words. An employee could not expect to exercise this right to do paid self-employed work, as he would be getting paid twice!

 

The best way to approach this would be to negotiate the time off required (paid or unpaid) to do the self-employed work.

 

Che

[Daley]

Hi Che,

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

I take on board your comments re getting paid twice.

 

Would my client have a case though for getting the time off unpaid, upto the 40% stated by ACAS and would his employers be able to refuse this?

 

Regards,

 

Daley