Redundancy….

[SantaClaus]

Of course, if you're in the public sector, there's always the discrimination card.

Build up a case of racial/sexual discrimination and use it to negotiate a bigger payoff before you leave.

[Gruffalo]

Thanks for the advice chaps.

Compromise agreement was the only route given how the whole thing has been.

I am sorted financially until March, but if you take the cost of travel (on garden leave) and tax break, this is equivalent to the end of May, so I consider this a real result.

CV has been updated with good support from my colleagues, many are very decent people who are very envious of my lucrative escape. My boss was clearing his desk at the same time as me. Smiling as much as I was.

Have a couple of chats with agents, one interview already, hoping to get a couple more tomorrow, so looking fairly promising to get on with things. If anyone knows of any testing contracts around the North West, I am all set for returning to the dark side

Top advice peeps - Many, many thanks. It helped a lot.

Off for a much needed weekend break on Friday, but nose back to that jobserve grindstone for now..... Not a great deal out there, but early days of hunting!

[psychocandy]

Be careful about starting contracts while still on garden leave though. Employee can still legally ask you to come back to work.

Also, you may find that compromise agreement will say that you cant work during garden leave. Might be a bit off if employer finds out and then whole agreement is invalid because of it.

I know people who did it when I went but they were crapping it in case employer found out.

Good luck with the job/contract hunt though. Nothing better than getting a wad of redundancy money and then walking straight into a decent contract :-)

[northernladuk]

Be careful about starting contracts while still on garden leave though. Employee can still legally ask you to come back to work.

Also, you may find that compromise agreement will say that you cant work during garden leave. Might be a bit off if employer finds out and then whole agreement is invalid because of it.

I know people who did it when I went but they were crapping it in case employer found out.

Good luck with the job/contract hunt though. Nothing better than getting a wad of redundancy money and then walking straight into a decent contract :-)

+1 to this. Some employment contracts don't allow you to work elsewhere whilst being employed let alone the gardening leave issue. I would personally ask HR about this one specifically. I don't think they will move to block this and you are not showing your hand to them. You have an issue and it is fair to ask them. I personally have been called back to work during gardening leave when a new role came up and you being unavailable could have some serious consequences. Get clarrification before jumping in IMO.

[vetran]

Agree, some of my ex colleagues have ended up in trouble having been caught working on Garden leave.

some training courses (get them to pay for them) may be worth investigating.

[psychocandy]

My last permie employer made it clear that anyone caught working during garden leave would face the termination of the agreement. Twats.

I went on a course (kindly paid for by the welsh government) about 2 weeks before the end of my garden leave. I phoned them to tell them and they were even a bit off about this which I thought was being a bit unreasonable.

They said, because of the training, I was not available to come in if they requested. FFS - I'd been on garden leave for 6 weeks with not a sniff and had 2 official weeks left.