Tom be honest, I have no idea of how the lawyer has arrived that this conclusion but legally it is not correct.
If there is a redundancy situation, the employer has a duty to make a reasonable search for suitable alternative employment (SAE). If such positions exist they must then be offered to those at risk of redundancy. The objective is to avoid having to make someone redundant and keep them in a job.
If the offer is considered suitable and the employee unreasonably rejects it, they will be deemed to have resigned and would not be made redundant or be entitled to a redundancy payment. If the offer is unsuitable and they reasonably reject it, they can still be made redundant and receive redundancy pay.
If they have offered her a driving job and she cannot drive, then clearly this is not SAE because it is not suitable to her current circumstances. Therefore, if she has not applied for it or even considered it, she has not done anything wrong as that is a reasonable rejection based on her not being able to do it as she simply dies not have the skills to do so. Unless there were any SAE positions which she unreasonably refused, she would have had to be made redundant instead and receive redundancy pay.
As to the notice period, I cannot see why they can reduce it from the contractual 12 weeks to just 4 weeks. They may try and argue that she had unreasonably refused a suitable alternative but in reality that was not the case. In any event, even if she had resigned she would ae still been due the contractual notice period due to her.
Does this answer your query?