Redundancy pay

Q. How many years can the member count for redundancy pay entitlement if they started work for the company through an agency before being made permanent?

A. Statutory redundancy pay is payable only in respect of years worked for the company as an employee. The question is whether the member was an employee of the company during the time she worked through an agency.

This is particularly difficult to prove following the decision of the Court of Appeal in James v London Borough of Greenwich [2008] IRLR 302, CA. The Court said that if there is no express contract of employment between the claimant and the end-user (that is, the company), then one must be implied. It can only be implied if it is necessary to do so to explain the fact that the claimant is working for the end-user.

Unfortunately, that is normally explicable by the existence of a contract between the end-user and the agency and by the contract between the agency and the claimant.