12/03/2026

In Great Britain, on 26 February 2026 the Government opened a further

Consultation on the threshold for triggering collective redundancy obligations.

This considers setting a new organisation‑wide threshold for triggering collective redundancy obligations should be set. The consultation runs from 26 February 2026 to 21 May 2026 and applies only to England, Scotland and Wales.

Employment law is devolved and Northern Ireland is not included in these proposals. However, the consultation does consider if the rules could apply to Northern Ireland where the same employer operates across both jurisdictions. This makes the proposals relevant for NI employers with GB operations or shared workforce structures.

Importantly “organisation‑wide” refers only to employees employed by the same legal entity, not everyone employed across a wider corporate group. This means the threshold is triggered per company, not per group. So, if Group Limited owns several separate companies, the numbers are not added together. For example, if Group A Ltd proposes 19 redundancies and Group B Ltd proposes 10, these figures would not be combined because the employees work for different legal entities. Only redundancies within the same employing company count toward the organisation‑wide threshold.

Proposals

Collective redundancy rules in Great Britain currently require employers to start consultation when they plan to make 20 or more redundancies at a single establishment within 90 days. The meaning of “establishment” has been shaped by case law, including the Woolworths decision, where many employees did not fall into collective consultation because their redundancies were spread across smaller sites, each below the 20‑employee threshold. This has been heavily criticised by some.

The GB Employment Rights Act 2025 will change this by introducing a new requirement to consult when redundancies reach a threshold across the whole organisation, not just at a single site. The consultation now seeks views on how that organisation‑wide threshold should be set.

The Consultation sets out four possible methods for setting the new threshold:

1. Method 1: Single Fixed Number (Government’s Preferred Option)

A fixed threshold somewhere between 250 and 1,000 proposed redundancies across the organisation. This is the simplest and most predictable approach.

2. Method 2: Percentage‑Based Threshold

Collective consultation would be triggered when an employer proposes to make a certain percentage of its total workforce redundant.

3. Method 3: Fixed Threshold Based on Employer Size

A sliding scale depending on total headcount, for example:

• 50 redundancies for employers with 0–2,499 employees
• 500 redundancies for employers with 2,500–9,999 employees
• 750 redundancies for employers with 10,000+ employees

4. Method 4: Combined Percentage and Fixed Threshold

A mixed model where smaller employers use a percentage trigger and larger employers use a fixed number.

The Government is leaning towards Method 1 but is seeking views on all options.

The consultation also includes an Analytical Annex, which estimates that up to 39,000 employers and 18.2 million employees could fall within scope depending on where the threshold is set.

Position in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is not included in these proposals, and the current Northern Ireland Good Jobs Bill does not contain similar plans. NI already differs from GB in some areas of redundancy law. For example, NI retained the 90‑day consultation period for 100+ redundancies, whereas GB reduced it to 45 days.

However, the GB consultation raises two important questions (see full details below) for NI employers:

• Could the new GB rules apply to NI employees if their employment has a “sufficiently strong connection” with Great Britain?
• Should employees outside England, Scotland and Wales be excluded when calculating total employee numbers for the new threshold?

This matters for employers who operate across both jurisdictions, have NI employees working remotely for GB operations, or have NI employees who regularly travel to GB for work. Determining whether an employee has a “strong connection” is fact‑specific and may be difficult in practice. This creates practical challenges for organisations that operate across both jurisdictions, particularly when monitoring headcount and assessing whether the new GB thresholds are triggered.

Question 15 seeks views:

The changes to the Collective Redundancy consultation threshold will generally apply only to employees who are working in Great Britain and not to those working

in Northern Ireland (unless their employment has a sufficiently strong connection with Great Britain).

Do you foresee any potential challenges for a business operating across both Great Britain and Northern Ireland when monitoring headcount and redundancies? Please explain your

answer.

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

[ ] Don’t know

[ ] Other

[FREE TEXT BOX] Please explain your answer below.

Question 21 seeks views:

Should employees outside of England, Scotland and Wales (where these regulations would apply) be excluded when working out the total employee numbers an employer has?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

[ ] Don’t know

[ ] Other

We encourage any employer to provide us information, and we will feed those views into the Consultation response.