19 April 2013
Ordinarily, if you are making staff redundant, you only need to carry out individual consultation.
However if you are making more than 20 people redundant from a particular establishment in a 90 day period, you must also carry out collective consultation with trade union or elected representatives. If you are considering between 20 and 100 redundancies, group consultation should last at least 30 days.
Since the 6th April 2013, when making 100 or more redundancies, employers must start consultation at least 45 days before any dismissals can take effect (down from 90 days consultation previously).
ACAS have now issued a guide for employers on redundancy consultation which can be seen following this link – How-to-manage-collective-redundancies. Hopefully you will never have to use it!