Directors' redundancy. Any experts?

Waaaaay less fun than Emjay's beautiful cryptic epic, but, as the title suggests, I'm looking into the above.
I'd never heard of it before this week, but it looks as though we might be entitled to a reasonably significant sum
It does feel a bit like a scam though, so if anyone has experience of the scheme, I'd be really interested to hear...
Thanks as ever

Hi Jim,

In reality, there is no such thing. What there is, is the ability to claim a redundancy payment if you are an employee (as well as holding the office of director). As a director it can arise if the company is being wound up (it can arise in other circumstances, but HMRC may query how genuine it is). If you cannot establish you are an employee, you have no claim. If you establish you are an employee and the business is insolvent, it is a claim through the National Insurance Fund (which can also pay something like 8 weeks back wages, notice and holiday pay (at capped amounts)

Thanks, Mark. It sounds as though you're busy enough, so I'm not after adding to your load! We are winding up the company and we were both employees as well as directors. The bit I'm unsure about is having to pay an insolvency practitioner to wind up the company (costing a fairly big sum) as well as the "expert" getting us the payment. Just seems fishy!

Well, we've looked into this and decided it's not for us. There's a chance that we could end up with a sum that would be nice to have, but there's equally a chance that we could end up with nothing financially (unlike some of the middle people) and risk getting a poorer credit rating plus the feeling that we'd done something a bit shabby. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should!
I should add the caveat that for some people in different circumstances it's an entirely appropriate and justifiable route.