My father was served notice of redundancy back in June 08. He was under a consultancy period for 90 days. However, come September 08, the consultation period/effective date of termination, was extended for another 90 days. Come December 08, he was given another 90 days extension with an effective date of termination of March 31st. He has now been offered a 6 month extension/contract rather than full-time employment.

Questions:

1). The problem is that he has been under the threat of redundancy for about 9 months and does not want to continue in this way. But (from what I gather) if he refuses to accept this new contract, he will not be entitled to any redundancy payments. Is this correct?

2a). Can a company continue to effectively say “well, we’re still not sure if the position is to be made redundant, so let’s keep extending the consultancy period so we can get rid of him when the right time comes”?

2b). Surely this isn’t right? Isn’t this abuse of power and/or the law/regulations?

3). Is there a maximum time that one can be on a consultation period? It must end at some point, either cancelled or followed-through with!

I would really appreciate some insight to this – or even a link to some info. I have looked high and low for answers to no avail.
simeon hills