Ironic that you find yourself defending your company and where you work from people who know little or nothing about it yet you choose to make sweeping generalisations about redundancy
As someone who was made redundant last year I found your posts highly offensive. In my experience employers don't tend to use redundancy to get rid of deadwood ( they have to be very careful anyway as it's the role rather than the person they are getting rid of ) instead they use it to lower numbers and / or restructure. In my case I was made redundant ( or my role was ) because the company I worked for removed a whole layer of managers directly below board level as the directors wanted "to get closer to the workforce". Here's hoping you never find out how nasty redundancy can be !!!
Rob - good luck. One piece of advice, make sure you know the redundacy process inside out and your company's handbook. Many HR Managers don't and so steps are missed etc. You then have a case for unfair dismissal. My employer failed to follow the process properly ( all minor things I admit ) and when I pointed it out I was able to negociate more redundancy money, I kept all my equipment ( laptop, desktop, phone etc ) AND, most importantly in my case, got them to waive some clauses in my contract that prevented me trying to get work at competitors and customers. It's called a compromise agreement and is worth thinking about - it might affect your job seekers allowance though so check with CAB.
