TUPE Overview

Getting to grips with the Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment Regulations or TUPE regulations can be confusing on your own, but Charity Business has the expertise on hand to explain and guide you through this legislation.

With any major change programme there is, more often than not, the likelihood of it impacting on staff and the roles within the charity.  One of these major change programmes would be outsourcing any services or functions to a third party or even bringing the function back in house if currently run by a third party.  In April 2006 the laws governing the outsourcing and insourcing of work changed to protect employees from being redundant without just cause and how any changes to the way a function was operated was governed. 

After April 2006 a single employee can now be considered under the Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment Regulations (TUPE) which now makes it even more important to ensure that you deal with employees professionally and in a timely manner. 

Change does not come without a cost but the cost can be minimised with dealing with staffing issues related to outsourcing by managing this professionally and with the input of professional advisors to assist you during the process.  The mistake that a great deal of organisations make is at the very beginning by not explaining to staff that they are looking at ways to minimise costs which “may” result in changes to the way a process or function is run.  By leaving this to the end of the process it can cause problems, take longer to deal with and potentially end up costing the organisation more. 

So when should the consultation take place for TUPE?  As soon as possible once discussions have started on the potential options available.  To ensure that the process then runs smoothly, once all the facts have been established, and to ensure that the right decision is being made, you need to provide the third party with as much information early on in the process so that they can establish the likely costs for the service provision.  This will also include information on the terms and conditions of employment for current staff within the function which is potentially being transferring over to the third party.  In this way, the true cost of taking on the service can be determined and ensure that the right decision is made.  Review the various stages involved here.

At Charity Business we recognise that not every organisation has dealt with this situation or has the expertise to draw upon assist them through the process, therefore, we have teamed up with Mogers a firm of solicitors from Bath to provide you with a cost effective solution to the issues related to TUPE.  Under the arrangements with Mogers, charities can receive the TUPE advice plus guidance as to what to do and when to do it for a set fee of £675 plus VAT and expenses.  The devised process is tried and tested and will also fit in with the decision making process of whether to outsource part or all of your finance function. Click for further details.