If you’re considering your overheads and thinking of asking contractors to deliver services you currently provide in-house, watch of for the ‘TUPE trap’.
TUPE’s over-riding principle – ’employees follow the work’. This means that wherever the work goes, employees are often entitled to follow.
If you forget or ignore this principle – when you make redundant employees currently delivering an in-house service, such dismissals may be automatically unfair.
Potential liabilities – you might also find yourselves liable for claims for failure to provide employee liability information to the incoming contractor (a minimum of £500 for each employee that information has not been provided for) and 13 weeks’ pay per employee who had the right to be consulted about the right to transfer.
It’s not always easy to identify where there is a TUPE transfer, so we’ve uploaded a checklist to the Intelligent Employment platform (under ‘TUPE guidance’) to help you further. Or get in touch if you’d like to discuss a potential TUPE transfer with our expert employment lawyers.