Redundancy threat.

My daughter has worked as a secretary for a legal firm for 24 years. A year ago her boss sold out to another solicitor, but the 23 years she worked for him are being counted as continual service. Due to the recession (houses not being bought/sold, wills not being updated, etc) one of the two secretaries has to lose her job. DD is wondering that if she volunteered for redundancy, would she receive 'unemployment benefit'? She's concerned that it might seem that she'd be making herself unemployed. Also, she thinks that she'd only receive unemployment benefit for 6 months. Does anyone have any idea how it all works?