Cast your mind back to the Keeping Kids Company closure in August 2015. At the time it was a big media story because the charity had received a lot of government funding, then everything unravelled very quickly and the charity closed down.
KKC was taken to an employment tribunal accused of failing to inform and consult with their employees on pending possible redundancies. The charity offered the defence of ‘special circumstances’ sighting the events of August 2015 which lead to the closure and 20+ redundancies.
However, in June 2015 KKC applied for emergency government funding with a business plan to restructure the business whereby half of its staff might be made redundant within a few months.
The Employment Appeals Tribunal ruled that ‘special circumstances’ that occurred in August 2015 was not sufficient grounds for defence and that the duty to inform and consult with employees should have happened in June on the publication of their business plan.
Often employment tribunals rule in favour of employees because the employer failed to follow the correct procedure. Which is what happened in this case. Clearly KKC was aware that redundancies were likely but they didn’t inform or consult with their employees.
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