Guidance notes for departments/agencies
[
Previous page: The hearing |
Next page: Majority decision]
After the hearing
The Board’s decision will be notified to both parties in writing within 48
hours of the hearing and will be sent to the individual who has been the
Secretariat’s contact throughout the appeal process. The result will not be
given over the telephone in any circumstances. Detailed reasons for the
Board’s decision will be circulated to all concerned within 20 working days
after the date of the hearing (the Hearing Report).
If the decision is found to be fair then no further action can be taken by
the Board once the Hearing Report has been issued.
If the Board decides that the Department’s/Agency’s decision was unfair:
-
they may recommend that the appellant should be reinstated or
-
decide that compensation should be paid or
-
recommend that some other course of action it considered to be
appropriate should be taken.
The Head of the Department or Chief Executive of the Agency should take the
final decision on whether to accept a recommendation to reinstate. If the
appellant’s appeal is upheld and a recommendation to reinstate is made, the
department/agency should inform the CSAB of its decision who will in
turn relay this to the appellant and advise further action. If the decision
is not to reinstate then an award of compensation will be made. The
Secretariat will ask, and expect, that your decision is made and returned
within 28 days of the hearing report being issued.
The compensation awarded by the Board may be increased or reduced from 100%
for one of three reasons. Failure by a Department or Agency to follow the
statutory dismissal and disciplinary procedures, which were brought into
effect by the Employment Act 2002 (Dispute Resolution) Regulations 2004,
will result in an adjustment to the level of compensation awarded. Equally,
if the Board finds that an employee has been dismissed unfairly but has
failed to follow the statutory procedure (for instance they did not attend
the disciplinary hearing without good cause), compensation will be reduced.
Reductions can also be made if the case was found procedurally unfair (the
“Polkey” factor), but, apart from that, the dismissal was justifiable and
also if it is felt that the appellant was in some way responsible for the
circumstances which led to their dismissal (the contributory fault factor).
Representations will be sought from both the appellant, their
representative and the department/agency before the Board take a decision
on any reduction to be made. When compiling your representations you will
need to bear in mind the following questions:
-
“Polkey” factor - what was the likelihood of dismissal had the correct
procedures been followed?
-
Contributory fault - the extent to which the appellant’s actions led to
dismissal?
In the representations it should be noted down the reasons why the
department/agency believe that the appellant is either wholly or partly
responsible and how much the department/agency believe the impact of the
appellant’s actions affected the decision to dismiss.
When the award has been calculated all parties will be sent details of the
award and a copy of the representations made by the other parties. The
CSAB follow the
guidelines set out by the Employment Tribunal Service. It is expected that
the award should be made within 42 days of the compensation award details
being issued.
