Protective award secured for Aspire-Igen Group employees

Employees at Bradford based company Aspire-Igen Group Ltd who were made redundant are now celebrating after Pearson Solicitors brough a successful protective award claim.

Aspire-Igen Group protective award claim

Thirty eight staff from Aspire-Igen Group, a social enterprise and career advice service, came to Pearson Solicitor for advice and when the company went into administration in July 2023. A settlement was awarded by the Employment Tribunal to the ex-employees that brough the claim and they are pleased with the result.

“Many of us in the company were lost with what to do after we were let go, but Pearson Solicitor assured us we had a good claim,” said one staff member

“If you ever find yourself in a position as we all did regarding a protective award you could not go wrong in contacting them,” he added.

Aspire-Igen Group administration

Aspire-Igen Group employed around 110 people providing educational programmes for young people across West Yorkshire and Humberside.

The employees were told that the company was appointing administrators and staff were made redundant from Aspire-Igen Group Ltd without adequate prior consultation.

Employees are entitled to pursue a claim for a protective award if 20 or more employees are made redundant from one establishment and their employer does not follow a statutory consultation process before making them redundant.  The claim was initially defended by the administrators on the basis that not all of Aspire-Igens’ offices employed 20 or more employees, even if the total number of employees employed by Aspire-Igen across all locations substantially exceeded 20.

Partner and Employment Law Solicitor, Alan Lewis, who led the protective award claim, said:

“This was a complex case involving intense legal debate.  We argued here that the business operated on a course/project basis rather than a geographical site basis.  Employees were managed and organised into teams based upon courses and projects rather than the geographical location where they worked. Staff were frequently relocated on a temporary or permanent basis from one site to another and timetabling was also done centrally, so essentially they were operating as one business.”

“We fought hard to establish this with witness statements backing up the evidence and I’m pleased to say we were successful in every one of the 38 cases we dealt with and our clients received £1,000s in protective awards, money they did not anticipate but which has undoubtedly helped them after what was a stressful period.”

Why Pearson Solicitors?

Over the past few years the Pearson Solicitors employment department have helped hundreds of clients all over the country make Protective Award claims across a wide variety of sectors.

If employers have not followed the correct procedures when making staff redundant then Pearson Solicitos can help the affected employees bring a protective award claim on a No-Win-No-Fee.

A protective award claim is compensation of up to 90 days’ gross pay, which can be awarded by an Employment Tribunal when an employer fails to follow the correct collective redundancy process of twenty or more employees from the same establishment. There is no minimum length of service to qualify for such an award and quite often employees obtain more compensation by way of a protective award than, for example, statutory redundancy or notice pay, which are completely separate claims.

“In many cases when staff are based at different offices, factories or general places of work the 20 or more staff member number can be a difficult hurdle to overcome. In this case we were able to use our extensive experience in theses cases to overcome this obstacle,” said Alan Lewis.

How can we help?

For legal advice on employee rights or to make a protective award claim contact our employment law solicitors on 0161 785 3500 or email enquiries@pearsonlegal.co.uk.

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Please note that the information and opinions contained in this article are not intended to be comprehensive, nor to provide legal advice. No responsibility for its accuracy or correctness is assumed by Pearson Solicitors and Financial Advisers Ltd or any of its members or employees. Professional legal advice should be obtained before taking, or refraining from taking, any action as a result of this article.