The ‘total closure’ scenario is self-explanatory. If a business is due to close completely, then that will amount to a redundancy situation. Here there is no issue about pooling, selection, or alternative employment, as it’s likely everyone will be made redundant.

However, this can include temporary closures too, which is where it gets complicated. A common example of this would be if the site was closed for refurbishment. Whether this sort of situation would provide grounds for redundancy would be fact-specific and determined on a case-by-case basis.

When it appears that the employer is replacing one business with another, a Tribunal may have to decide whether the new business is sufficiently different in nature from the original one. If so, the dismissal of the employer’s original employees will be for redundancy. Again, this will come down to a question of fact.

A site or workplace closure is, again, relatively self-explanatory. For instance, if a company owns a series of factories and closes one of them, then that is likely to be a redundancy situation.

One caveat that often arises is the question of which site the employee actually works at and if they should even be affected at all. The general consensus here is that the Tribunal will largely ignore what the contract says and instead look at the reality of the situation.

When considering this type of redundancy, the starting point is the requirements of the business. This implies a commercial judgement, on the employer’s part, about the priorities of the business and about which kind of work has become surplus to requirement.