Agency Closure

[Tom8]

My wife has a part time job where she is employed and paid by an agency working in an office job for someone else. She's been there about three years. The owner of the agency has decided she is giving up the agency.

My wife wants to continue working her job so but not as a direct employee as she enjoys the flexibility of working for the agency.

My thoughts are she has two options;

1. Find another agency and TUPE over to them and the new agency takes on a new client.
2. Demand redundancy from the closing agency and restart with a new agent in the same role.

There is little to be gained by maintaining continuous service in the role so I think the better option would be number 2, but can you force/demand a redundancy process?

[NDA]

Tom8 said:

My wife has a part time job where she is employed and paid by an agency working in an office job for someone else. She's been there about three years. The owner of the agency has decided she is giving up the agency.

My wife wants to continue working her job so but not as a direct employee as she enjoys the flexibility of working for the agency.

My thoughts are she has two options;

1. Find another agency and TUPE over to them and the new agency takes on a new client.
2. Demand redundancy from the closing agency and restart with a new agent in the same role.

There is little to be gained by maintaining continuous service in the role so I think the better option would be number 2, but can you force/demand a redundancy process?

I am not sure the TUPE regulations cover your wife - however I am not an employment lawyer! Also not sure you can 'demand' redundancy as a contractor. Again, someone will put me right, I'm sure.

I would have thought the best route would be for your wife to talk to her manager where she currently works and see if there is a deal to be done - she'd be cheaper to employ directly (rather than through the agency) and if they don't want her on their books, then she could continue to be a contractor.

[Countdown]

If she's a permanent employee of the Agency then she's entitled to redundancy (you don't "demand" redundancy you're either legally entitled to it or you're not). If she's a permanent employee with over 2 years service she's entitled to it. If she's an Agency Temp then she won't be.

In either case the best option for next steps (assuming she doesn't want to work directly for the Company) is to contact another Agency, describe the circumstances, and they'll likely bite her hand off.

EA TUPE doesn't apply, there's no transfer of work to a new Agency.