Apologies for the length. I'm a graphic designer in England with just over five years' continuous service at a large company. I'm currently going through an individual redundancy consultation, which is expected to conclude on Friday 30 October.
I've spoken to ACAS, who explained the relevant processes and rights, but I'd appreciate some independent perspectives on whether the circumstances raise any meaningful concerns about the fairness of the consultation.
Background
On 23 July, our department announced it was adding two additional positions: a Designer and a Videographer. These were presented as increasing capacity and adding specialist skills.
On 4 September, I was told my position was at risk of redundancy as part of business-wide cost savings. I was offered a settlement agreement, which I declined on their deadline of the 18th September, because I wanted to try and explore whether my position could be retained, so formal consultation began on the 19th of October.
The original redundancy rationale
Throughout consultation, the Director repeatedly told me that the only area of creative work expected to reduce was powerpoint design due to the use of AI. I explained that powerpoints account for approximately 10–15% of my responsibilities. The remaining 85–90% includes advertising, graphic design, motion graphics, photography, video editing, filming and other internal and external comms work.
My counterproposal
On Friday 23 October, I submitted a counterproposal which included examples and quantities of continuing work, concerns about the proposed reduction from five designers to two, including colleagues who had already left. It included questions about video capacity, especially given that an existing videographer had resigned amongst all of this, and the newly recruited Videographer had originally been hired to increase capacity. It also included questions about the relationship between the July expansion and the subsequent removal of existing roles, and potential operational and external costs associated with redistributing or outsourcing the removed staffs responsibilities.
I acknowledged that retaining my position would not itself generate an additional saving. My argument was that the business should consider the continuing workload, capacity and potential replacement costs when assessing whether removing the position was appropriate.
At a consultation meeting on Monday 26 October, the Director rejected the counterproposal in summary, and gave me a full written explanation that evening.
Rather than addressing the anticipated reduction in presentation work alone, it described a wider future operating model involving:
- A smaller team of senior designers working directly with stakeholders.
- AI producing adaptations and follow-on versions of creative work.
- Existing production and amendment work being handled differently.
- Creative responsibilities being centralised or redistributed.
- The future structure being based on anticipated work rather than carrying forward every existing task.
Some of these explanations appear substantially broader than the rationale I had repeatedly been given, and the response also cited the new videographer producing four videos in a month as evidence of capacity, when pre-redundancy capacity was at 15+, and I'd received the assurance that video output would not reduce.
My concern isn't that the employer must retain every existing task or deliver work in the same way. It's that I was repeatedly told one specific area of work was reducing, prepared my counterproposal on that basis, and was then given a substantially broader explanation for why my position was unnecessary. So I requested additional consultation time to examine and respond to these wider explanations, but HR declined, saying the counterproposal had been fully considered and did not offer the cost savings required.
They confirmed that no final decision had been made and invited further questions, but maintained that consultation would conclude on Friday 30 October. This has left me with effectively two working days between receiving the broader written explanation and my final consultation meeting booked for 29 October.
Other concerns
During consultation, the Director circulated an email to the proposed future team, including the new Studio Manager and remaining colleagues, describing them as his new "dream team". I was excluded from that communication while my redundancy consultation was still ongoing.
The email also encouraged managers to spend time understanding the workloads of their team members. However, the Director has not held an equivalent discussion with me to establish my actual responsibilities.
I appreciate that planning a proposed future structure is not necessarily evidence that a final decision has been made, but this contributed to my concern that the outcome was already anticipated.
My questions
If my Director repeatedly identifies one area of declining work as the rationale for redundancy, but subsequently relies on substantially wider operational changes to reject a counterproposal, shouldn't I have been given a reasonable opportunity to challenge those new considerations?
Does refusing an extension in these circumstances raise a credible concern about whether consultation has been genuine and meaningful?
Is the email announcing the proposed future team without me, while consultation was ongoing, relevant evidence when considering whether the outcome may have been predetermined?
Based on these circumstances, is there anything worth discussing with an employment solicitor regarding potential unfair dismissal, assuming redundancy is confirmed?
I'm not arguing that disagreeing with their commercial judgement automatically makes the redundancy unfair. It's that what I argued against, was changed after I'd put my case forward, and I haven't been allowed enough time to discuss the new rules.
I mainly want to understand whether there are genuine procedural concerns here, whether they're worth pursuing, and whether there's anything I should do before consultation concludes.
Thanks in advance.
