Roles and responsibilities

3.1 Governors and Headteachers have joint responsibilities within this procedure to:

1. Ensure the Redundancy Policy is followed correctly, seeking advice from the Human Resources Consultancy & Advisory Team or the school’s Human Resources provider at the earliest opportunity;
2. Minimise redundancies wherever possible;
3. Ensure the redundancy process is applied consistently, the redundancy selection criteria is fair, objectively justified, non-discriminatory and employees selected for redundancy have the opportunity to appeal the decision;
4. Carry out an Equality Impact Assessment to discharge their Public Sector Equality Duty in the event of any redundancies and ensure that the redundancy process is monitored and controlled to comply with this. (See Toolkit for further details)
5. Adhere to the timescales detailed within the policy (see Toolkit Appendix 1);
6. Consult with the relevant Trade Unions and Associations when redundancy is a possibility as well as informing employees; and
7. Wherever possible offer a suitable alternative role for any employee who is to be made redundant.

In addition, both the Governing Body and Headteacher have specific roles and responsibilities under this policy:

the Governing Body:

• will formally agree to invoke the redundancy procedure based on information about relevant staffing, financial and regulatory information.
• Ensure appropriate committees have been established to make redundancy decisions, hear representations and formal appeals from staff facing dismissal (see Toolkit)

The Headteacher:

• will act on behalf of the Governing Body (and its committees) and will lead on most of the actions.

• will ensure that relevant information and formal letters are provided to appropriate parties throughout the process.