New rules come into effect on 6 April as follows:

• the current 90-day minimum period before the first redundancy can take effect (if there are 100 or more redundancies) is halved to 45 days. There is no change to the 30-day minimum period for 20-99 redundancies.
• the expiry of fixed term contracts will be excluded from the scope of collective redundancy consultation. However, dismissals before the end of a fixed-term will still be covered.