Unfairly Selected for Redundancy?

How to check and challenge your scores

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Summary

Your employer must choose who goes using fair, objective redundancy selection criteria.
You can ask to see the criteria and your own scores.
Picking you for a discriminatory or unlawful reason can be challenged from day one.
Appeal in writing, with evidence, before your job ends.

You've been told you're at risk of redundancy, and your scores are the lowest of all the individuals who are at risk. That means you’re most likely to be chosen first to go. But who decided the scores, and how?

Redundancy selection is where many redundancies go wrong and turn out to be unfair. If the criteria or the scoring are unfair, you can challenge them. Here's how.

How redundancy selection should work

The pool. First, your employer decides which group of jobs is at risk, called the 'selection pool'. It should include everyone doing similar work, not just the people it wants to lose.

The criteria. Next, it scores everyone in the pool against the same redundancy selection criteria, usually on a 'selection matrix', or a scoring table.

Consultation. It must then talk to you about your scores before any final decision. If 20 or more people at one site could go within 90 days, there must also be group consultation with employee representatives.

Fair and unfair redundancy selection criteria

Fair criteria are objective and can be checked, such as:

Skills, qualifications and experience the business needs
Documented performance, such as appraisal ratings
Disciplinary record
Attendance, leaving out any absences linked to disability, pregnancy or maternity leave. Counting those absences against you can be discrimination

Red flags include vague criteria such as 'attitude', 'flexibility' or 'fit with the team', scores given by one manager with no evidence, and criteria chosen to make sure a particular person is selected, such as a skill only one colleague happens to have.

It's also unlawful to select you because you're pregnant, took family leave, blew the whistle, raised health and safety concerns, or are in a trade union. Those can be challenged from day one, with no minimum service.

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Do I Have a Case?

How to challenge your redundancy selection

1. Ask for the details in writing. The selection pool, the redundancy selection criteria, how each one was weighted, who scored you, and your own scores with the reasons.

2. Check every score. Compare each mark with your appraisals, training records and achievements. Note any score with no evidence behind it.

3. Challenge it in consultation. Put your points in writing before the final decision. Ask for any wrong scores to be looked at again.

4. Ask about other jobs. Your employer should look for suitable alternative work for you. If you're on maternity leave, or returned from it in the last 18 months, you get priority.

5. Appeal. If you're selected, appeal in writing, setting out every flaw in the pool, criteria and scoring.

6. Watch the deadline. For dismissals on or after 1st October 2026, you have six months less one day to start Acas early conciliation, which is the first step towards a claim.

A man at his desk frowning at his redundancy selection scores on a computer screen

An unfair selection can make your dismissal unfair. You currently need two years' service to claim unfair dismissal, falling to six months if your employment ends on or after 1st January 2027.

A strong challenge can also lead to a better exit package. See settlement agreements.

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How Grapple Law can help

Grapple Law is a legal AI. It helps you spot weak points in your employer's redundancy selection criteria and scoring.

It can then help you ask for your scores, write your challenge and appeal, and, where it makes sense, negotiate a better exit.

Using Grapple Law is free to start, with a choice of legal services at a fraction of the cost of a traditional solicitor.

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FAQs

Redundancy Selection Questions

All your questions, answered.

It can be one factor, but using it alone, known as 'last in, first out', risks age discrimination against younger workers. It's safer used as a tie-breaker.

Usually not by name, because of data protection. But you can ask for anonymised scores, so you can see how close you were and whether the marking looks consistent.

A pool of one can be fair if your job really is unique. If others do similar work, ask why they weren't included.

Yes, if the criteria or the scoring put you at a disadvantage because of a protected characteristic, such as your age, sex, race or disability. You don't need two years' service for that.