What is Retention and Exit Terms (RETs) for Business Critical Staff?
Retention and Exit Terms (RETs) is a scheme to help employers secure staff in a small proportion of posts that are identified as business critical and would otherwise be difficult to fill.
In particular, it enables employers to offer staff who agree to remain in such posts an ‘option’ to take a voluntary severance payment or redundancy payment (if there is an entitlement) at an agreed date in the future in the event that they are not offered suitable alternative employment or transfer under TUPE.
What is the purpose of the scheme?
The scheme has been developed to assist employers to support business continuity during transition by offering staff (who might otherwise be tempted to leave business critical posts to secure their futures) security around employment, pay and terms and conditions for the duration of their appointment during the transition, and certainty of terms on exit.
What are the benefits of RETs to the individual and to the organisation?
RETs provides the individual with assurance about employment for a defined period and certainty about the financial end position. It gives the organisation assurance of continuity of vital skills in selected business critical posts.
Does the scheme apply to all employees?
RETs is designed to apply to a small number of business critical posts.
The decision about which posts require RETs should be made locally by employers working in partnership with local staff side to determine the eligibility criteria.
Sections 25 - 32 of the RETs guidance sets out some broad criteria and tests that organisations should apply when developing eligibility criteria to identify which posts are deemed to be business critical. Organisations must ensure that the criteria and processes for the identification of business critical posts are fair and transparent.
How will I have fair access to RETs - and assurance that posts deemed business critical are indeed that and not selected to provide a backdoor selection mechanism?
National policy requires selection for RETs to be fair and transparent and developed in partnership with local staff side representatives.
In addition, each organisation will be responsible for completing an Equality Impact Analysis on their RETs scheme (before and after implementation) to demonstrate this. An offer of RETS to any individual should not prejudice the employment rights of another member of staff. Failure to select on a fair and transparent basis could create a risk of legal challenge.
How will I know that I am eligible for the RETs offer?
The RETs scheme is not open to application. Your employer will undertake a service review and identify business critical posts against the criteria and tests it has developed and agreed with local staff side representatives in accordance with sections 25-32 of the RETs guidance. Individuals whose posts are selected for RETs will then be advised by their line managers who will discuss the offer with them on a 1:1 basis.
I am unhappy not to have been thought of as business critical and would have liked to have been given the RETs offer, what can I do?
RETs will only be offered to a small proportion of staff who are carrying out work in business critical posts which would otherwise be difficult to fill. Not being offered RETs should therefore not be misinterpreted as a reflection on individual performance or commitment. It does not mean you are not doing work of significance and value.
If I am offered RETs and agree to remain in post until the end of the required retention period, can I change my mind and leave before that date?
It is expected that staff will commit to remain in post until the agreed date. If staff subsequently leave prior to this date they will lose their entitlement to any severance payment under the RETs scheme for that appointment.
If I agree to accept the RETs offer can my employer decide to make me redundant before the end of the required retention period?
No. RETs provides staff with guaranteed employment up to the end of the agreed retention period (subject to the normal requirements of satisfactory performance and conduct standards).
What is the difference between RETs and redundancy terms? I don’t understand the relationship between RETs and redundancy - how does this work in practice, how does the timing work?
RETs guarantees the option of a severance payment instead of redundancy at an agreed date in the future, provided that the individual has not been offered suitable alternative employment or transfer under TUPE.
The severance payment would be based on one month’s salary for each year of reckonable service, up to a maximum payment of 24 months pay. The individual can therefore choose to take RETs rather than redundancy payments at that stage if they believe that is in their best interests. They cannot receive both RETs and redundancy payments.
Contact details
If you have any further questions then these should be sent to RETs.Q&A@dh.gsi.gov.uk