We have two employees both on fixed term contracts until 31 March 2008. Both posts are linked to specific funding programmes that both come to an end at 31 March, 2008.

The fixed term contract states that we will give a month's notice to terminate employment. However, we would like to inform them asap so that they can start to look for other jobs as the funding will not be continued and we have no approved funding for 08/09 that would mean we could offer them alternative roles.

One of the employees is pregnant, due early Jan but she only wants to take the minimum 2 weeks' maternity leave and then come back to finish her contract to end March.

My questions are:

(a) are we effectively making them redundant and, if so, do I have to follow any kind of redundancy process?

(b) do I have to follow the statutory dismissal process (which I believe is 3 stage) in order to terminate their employment, even though it is a fixed term contract?

(c) or do I just inform them in writing that their contract will not be renewed because the funding has ceased and we're not able to offer alternative employment?

We are currently business planning and making funding applications but it is doubtful that we would have confirmed funding before end March 08 in order to allow us to even assess whether our business case can support offering them a job.

Many thanks