Employees who are made redundant as a result of insolvency can make a claim to the National Insurance Fund for redundancy pay, arrears, holiday pay and unpaid statutory notice pay. 

The payments made are subject to statutory limits, since 1 February 2013, this has been a maximum of £450 a week.  The Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order 2014 will raise the limit to £464 with effect from 6 April 2014.

these claims are processed by the Redundancy Payments Office in a much shorter timescale (generally 3-6 weeks) than if the employees had to wait for the assets of their employer to be realised before they could be paid (if there are even sufficient assets to pay the employees anything at all).

An employee who earns more than the statutory limit can make a separate claim in the insolvency proceedings.  If you want to calculate how much redundancy pay you might be due, go to the government website:  https://www.gov.uk/calculate-your-redundancy-pay.  For more information about employee claims, contact Dodd Rescue.

Buyers of a business (insolvent or not) need to be aware of how staff liabilities and contracts will transfer. 

Obviously TUPE rules generally state that all contracts and liabilities simply transfer to the purchasing entity, this may have a huge bearing on the price a buyer may be willing to pay and will certainly have an impact if the buyer wishes to make any changes to the workforce.  A few new clarifications have come into force in January that may impact on a purchasing business.

Specifically  any dismissals in connection with the transfer are automatically unfair unless there is an economic, technical or organisation reason for the change (ETO reason).  ETO has been extended to include changes in location, so place of work redundancies are not automatically unfair.  This may be relevant if a buyer is purchasing an insolvent business and moving the location to merge with their own for example.

The rules on TUPE are both complex and potentially financially significant, so it is important to obtain good legal advice when buying (or selling a business) – whether from a solvent or insolvent company.

“It’s rare that my two careers collide” comments Jeanette Brown   “but in recent months I’ve had to apply both sets of skills in advising clients on taking steps forward.”

Jeanette is both Director of Healthcare and Insolvency at Dodd and Co. Normally her work with Dodd Rescue, the insolvency part of the business, is entirely separate from taking care of her GP clients. In recent months however, Jeanette has had to advise a number of GPs about potential insolvency proceedings as the current economic climate begins to bit.

“All of the situations I advised on were almost identical in nature” Jeanette goes on to explain. “It’s all about the current challenges being placed on income streams in GP Practices coupled with high tax and superannuation bills from previous years. Partners in practices often find it difficult to cope with the drain on their resources and don’t know where to turn to for help”.

Jeanette says that if she could give one message to GP’s in these circumstances it would be “Please don’t bury your head in the sand and think all your financial worries will suddenly disappear”. She continues “There’s a lot of disinformation out there about the way insolvency works. As I often say to the people I am advising, there’s a million miles between getting into financial difficulty and declaring yourself bankrupt. As long as you speak to an appropriately qualified advisor at an early enough stage, there are lots of ways we can help you out, whether that means help with raising finance or taking further steps to protect your personal assets”.

Jeanette goes on to advise that any GP thinking about speaking to a professional on insolvency matters needs to ensure that the adviser has knowledge about NHS contracting, the Performers List, NHS Pensions as well as the pitfalls of the personal and partnership insolvency regimes. “Taking advice from someone only partly-qualified in these areas can turn a bad situation into a catastrophic one” says Jeanette “And the list of people that can properly advise you is probably a very short one!”

So GP’s in financial difficulty – you have been warned!

Make sure as a Dr, that it’s Dodd Rescue that comes to your aid!