Guidance notes for officers appealing
[
Previous page: The department's/agency's statement |
Next page: Observers]
The hearing
You and one other person will be invited to appear before the Board on a
date arranged by the Secretariat. You may bring only one person, either
representing or supporting you, into the Board room for the hearing itself.
The hearing date will, as far as possible, take account of the wishes of
both the appellant and the department/agency. Hearings generally last for
approximately between two and two and a half hours and begin at either
10.30am or 2.30pm and are held Monday to Thursday inclusive.
You are strongly advised to attend the hearing and to have the assistance
of a representative who is familiar with all aspects of the case.
If you are attending the hearing without representation, make sure that you
bring all the necessary documents with you and that they have been read
thoroughly.
The department/agency will be invited to send two representatives to the
hearing. One of those will usually be a member of your line management or
the person who took the decision to dismiss you. The other is usually from
Human Resources. You should, however, note that neither the Board nor you
can dictate to the department/agency who their representatives should be.
Having decided to appeal you should make every effort to attend the hearing
in person. If you do not attend the hearing the Board will consider your
case on the written statements sent in by you and your department/agency.
However, please remember that this will mean you miss the opportunity to
explain your case to the Board in detail and will also prevent you from
drawing the Board's attention to any disagreement you might have with
the Department's/Agency's written statement. If you cannot attend
but wish your trade union or another person to represent you in your
absence you need to provide written confirmation to the Board that your
representative is willing to, and has your permission to, proceed in that
way.
The hearing will be confidential to the parties concerned and is conducted
as informally as possible.
On the day of the hearing it is essential that you and your representative
arrive on time as all parties need to be thoroughly briefed before the
hearing begins. In order to do this and to prevent the start of the hearing
being delayed we require you to arrive 45 minutes before the start of the
hearing. If, on the day of the hearing, you do not arrive within 30 minutes
after the time the hearing was scheduled to start and the Board has been
given no indication of delay or the reason for non-attendance the hearing
will go ahead a paperboard.
You need to consider the remedy that you are seeking from the Board as you
will be asked before the start of the hearing which remedy you are seeking
(i.e. reinstatement or
compensation).
At the outset of the hearing the Chairman will firstly explain the
procedures which the Board will follow and then invite your representative
to make a statement on your behalf. You will then be invited to add
anything to this statement if you wish to. If you do not have a
representative the individual who accompanies you may be allowed to go into
the Boardroom with you but will not be able to address the Board. This
should briefly explain why you consider the dismissal to have been unfair;
there is however no need to go through the written material in
detail as the Board members will all have read the papers in great
depth.
The Board will then question you about the oral and written submission.
Whilst the questions are directed to you, you can ask your representative
to assist you should you need to. After the questioning the
department/agency will be given the opportunity to respond and then will be
questioned by the Board. Finally you and your representative will be given
the chance to make your final submission to the Board. After that the
Chairman of the Board will ask all parties to leave and the Board will meet
in private to make its decision.
You may wish to note that you will not be able to ask the
Departmental/Agency's representatives questions during the hearing. Nor
will they be able to ask you questions. No witnesses can be called and the
Board does not consider visual or audio evidence (e.g. video recordings).
