Guidance

Explaining your Protective Award

Updated 6 April 2024

“A Protective Award is a penalty awarded by an employment tribunal against an employer for not complying with the collective redundancy consultation requirements. You’re only entitled to get this payment if you or your job role was included in the tribunal judgment.

If your former employer is insolvent, the Insolvency Service will pay the Protective Award, but the amount we can pay is capped at 8 weeks pay.

A Protective Award can be awarded where more than 20 employees are made redundant from one location within specific time frames. Employment tribunals can make various awards from 45 days to 90 days.

1. How can I find out if I am included in the Protective Award

You can only get a Protective Award payment if you, or your job role, was included in the tribunal judgment.

The person or organisation that took the case to the employment tribunal will be able to give you a copy of the judgment and tell you if you are entitled to the Award. This could be your trade union, your former management team or a solicitor, for example. If you’re included in the award, you should already have received information about the tribunal.

2. How do I apply for a Protective Award

If you’re included in the tribunal judgment, you do not need to take any action to claim the Protective Award. We’ll contact you if we need any information from you. We’ll write to you when we’re ready to pay you, and let you know how much money you will get.

3. How much can you pay me

We can pay up to a maximum of 8 weeks. If the Protective Award was for a longer period we will cap your award at 8 weeks.

If you were made redundant on or after 6 April 2024, your weekly pay is capped at £700. If you were made redundant before 6 April 2024, these amounts will be lower.

You cannot get a payment for a protective award and arrears of pay for the same time period. If you’ve already received money for your arrears of pay claim, we will deduct this amount from your Protective Award payment.

If the payment for your award is calculated on or after 6 April 2024 the NI deducted will be at a rate of 8% on payments above the primary threshold. You can find out information about National Insurance contributions.

4. When will you pay my Protective Award

We aim to pay Protective Awards within 12 weeks of receiving information about who is entitled to the award.

5. Why do you need to know if I claimed benefits

You cannot get a payment for a protective award and claim state benefits for the same time period. If you’ve received state benefits, or were eligible to claim them, we will deduct this amount from your Protective Award payment.

If you were eligible to claim benefits but decided not to, we have to deduct this amount from your Protective Award payment.

If you have not already provided this information, we’ll write to you and ask whether you received any state benefits during your notice period. We cannot process your Protective Award until you send us this information. State benefits include Universal Credit, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Income Support.

If you made a claim for loss of notice we may already have this information, so we might not send you a letter about this.

6. How will you pay my award

We’ll pay your Protective Award into the same bank or building society account we used when you last made a claim to us. If you’ve changed your bank details, please email your new details to us, so we can process your claim correctly.