If you lose your seat or stand down, you will need to make your employees’ jobs redundant.
As an employer, you have contractual and legal responsibilities to your staff.
This guide provides information that will help you meet these obligations.
It is important you keep your staff informed of their status and that you follow a formal procedure for making your staff members’ jobs redundant.
You can contact the Members’ HR Advice Service at 020 7219 2080 or by email at membershr@parliament.uk. They offer HR advice to MPs in their role as employers, including around staff redundancies.
The team is available to support you during the winding-up period.
For more information, visit Leaving office & employment.
You will also be given specific information at your meeting with IPSA and the Members’ HR Advice Service. You should consult with staff as soon as possible after this meeting and ensure you follow a fair procedure for making their jobs redundant.
Failure to do so could lead to you incurring additional costs or risk an employment tribunal claim against you for unfair dismissal.
You need to decide which staff you need to help wind down your parliamentary business after the Election, if any, and the last day of employment for each staff member.
Any staff you continue to employ during the winding-up period must have meaningful work to do along with a place to do the work.
The final day you can employ staff is the last day of the winding-up period.
Your staff will continue to receive their salary until their employment ends.
As always, staff whose salaries are being paid by IPSA cannot campaign or be involved in any political activities unless they take annual leave or unpaid leave.
Once the consultation is completed and you have responded to any queries raised by your staff, you should then confirm that their job is redundant by giving them a redundancy notice letter.
The Members’ HR Advice Service will provide template redundancy notice letters for guidance. The redundancy notices should be issued as soon as the formal redundancy consultation meeting has happened to ensure notice periods are worked.
The redundancy notice letter:
Gives each employee formal notice of termination of their contract of employment and their final day of service.
Sets out their entitlements, including what they can expect to receive in the way of a redundancy payment and how it is calculated, and any accrued but untaken annual leave and pay in lieu.
Once you have given your employees notice of redundancy letters, you must allow them reasonable time off, with pay, to look for other work, and to prepare for and attend interviews during their notice period. The individual should arrange this time off in advance with you and your HR proxy.
Redundancy payments are made by IPSA on the appropriate payday upon receipt of the Employee Leaver Form and a copy of the redundancy notice letter signed by the employer and employee via IPSA Online.
For advice on best practice, visit Leaving office & employment.
Redundancy payments
If your staff have two years of continuous service with the same employer, they will receive a redundancy payment, based on the number of whole years of continuous service (with the same MP) and other factors.
Staff on IPSA contracts will be entitled to twice their statutory redundancy entitlement.
Staff on non-IPSA contracts will normally be entitled to statutory redundancy, or what is stated in their contract.
You can use the gov.uk Calculate your redundancy pay tool for staff statutory redundancy payments.
Once IPSA has received the redundancy notices and Employee Leaver Forms (please see “What do I need to do?”), IPSA will make any redundancy payments to your staff and remove them from the payroll at the appropriate time.
Redundancy payments, as well as payments for Pay in Lieu of Notice (PILON) and untaken leave, will be paid from the Contingency Fund, rather than your Staffing Budget.
Other costs such as remaining salary, employer National Insurance and pension contributions and overtime pay, will be allocated to your Staffing Budget as normal.
Pay in lieu of notice (PILON)
Staff are normally expected to work until their final day of employment. If, exceptionally, there is no work for your employees to do, they would generally be entitled to payment in lieu of notice (known as PILON).
Notice periods will vary according to the individual terms and conditions of the employment contract of each of your staff, and their length of service.
Employees are entitled to the greater of their contractual and statutory notice period entitlement.
The length of service taken into account when calculating a statutory notice period is capped at 12 years.
So, if a staff member has been employed for less than one month, they will not be entitled to a statutory notice period.
If a staff member has been employed for one month to two years, they are entitled to a minimum of one week’s notice.
If a staff member has been employed for two years to 12 years, they are entitled to a minimum of two weeks’ notice plus an extra week for each additional year of continuous employment, up to a maximum of 12 weeks.
If a staff member has been employed for 12 years or more, they are entitled to a minimum of 12 weeks’ notice.
If a staff member’s contractual notice period is more than above, their contractual notice period applies.
Although it is up to you as the employer to decide at the point at which to give your staff notice of redundancy, IPSA expects you will do so at a point that allows you to wind up your affairs effectively, and also minimise the cost to the taxpayer of PILON.
It is expected that you would give your staff members notice of redundancy as soon as practically possible if they are not required to work during the winding-up period.
Please do not delay notice of redundancy in situations where your staff are genuinely not required.
During the 2019 General Election, approximately 78.6% of PILON payments may have been avoidable due to the late issuance of notice to staff members.
The full report can be found in the report Audit, Risk & Assurance: 2019 General Election.
At the next General Election, IPSA will not fund PILON costs for staff members where the notice period falls outside of the winding-up period.
This is because the winding-up period will be increased to four months and all staff members will be able to work out their notice period in that time if required.
PILON may still be claimable for staff members who are not required to work during the winding-up period.
For more information, visit Leaving office & employment.
Staff members on occupational family leave
Where staff member's jobs are made redundant (as a result of their employing MP leaving Parliament) while qualified for or in receipt of statutory pay entitlements for parental leave, former MPs may request that they receive the full amount of occupational pay they would have been entitled to, in relation to that period of parental leave, had their employment not ended.