Redundancy selection: pools, criteria and scoring

The selection pool

The pool is the group of people at risk. It's usually everyone doing the same or similar work, and sometimes people whose roles overlap. A pool of one can be fair when a role is genuinely unique, but the employer should be able to explain why no one else was included.

Fair criteria

Criteria should be objective, measurable and applied the same way to everyone. Common ones are:

• skills, qualifications and experience the business needs
• standard of work, from records rather than impressions
• disciplinary records
• attendance, leaving out absence related to disability, pregnancy or maternity

Length of service on its own (last in, first out) risks indirect age discrimination, so it's best used, if at all, as a tie-breaker.

Reasons that are always unfair

Selecting someone for any of these makes the dismissal automatically unfair:

• pregnancy, maternity, paternity, adoption or shared parental leave
• trade union membership or activity, or being an employee representative
• whistleblowing, or raising health and safety concerns
• working part-time or on a fixed-term contract
• asserting a legal right, such as asking for the minimum wage

Selection must also avoid discrimination because of any protected characteristic.

How scoring should work

1. Agree the criteria and how each is scored before anyone is scored
2. Use evidence for each score, and where possible have two people score
3. Share each person's own scores with them, and give them the chance to challenge them
4. Look at alternatives to redundancy for the people selected
5. Offer an appeal

The qualifying period for unfair dismissal changes on 1 January 2027, so more employees will be able to challenge an unfair selection.