Case Study: ‘That’s not in my job description’

Case studies from subscribers

We support school staff in England and Wales with a wide range of employment-related issues in schools.These range from clarification with employment contracts, PPA time, job references to allegations from pupils, dismissal from role to employment tribunals and Teaching and Regulation Agency hearings.

This case study looks at when a role is not clearly defined and the employer looks to take action.

Below, we highlight the types of questions and situations teachers contact us about. We have removed specific details about the cases and the actual names of subscribers for confidentiality reasons. You can also read our latest reviews from our subscribers on TrustPilot.

Case Study: ‘That’s not in my job description’

Case Headlines

Grant has recently been employed at a secondary school which is part of a larger wider Trust. He has been appointed as an Assistant Head and has key responsibilities for quality of teaching and learning, school trips and safeguarding.

Grant was informed that the Trust central monitoring had picked up a key task of his role that wasn’t being completed and that this was placing the school in a vulnerable position.

Subscriber View

Grant had a job description when he was appointed. The task mentioned was not itemised on that list. He still had the advert pack for the role and it wasn’t listed as an expectation. He felt that school was assuming he just ‘knew it was part of the job’. However he understood it to be the responsibility of the school’s recruitment processes and has always been an admin role in other schools he worked in. He had not been trained or guided on how to complete the task.

How did Edapt support?

Grant was invited to a disciplinary hearing. His caseworker spent time discussing the context and all the documents to gauge the position Grant was in and how best to explain his view. 

Grant’s caseworker was concerned that a hearing had been convened without an investigation interview for Grant to express his views. The school relied on the policy wording that an interview may be needed. the school maintained the policy gave them latitude to interview Grant or not.

It became obvious that the school had little experience in running a disciplinary process and hearings; the school had only asked HR to ‘attend to take notes’. Professional HR advice had not been sought on the application of the process from the start and no investigation report had been written. No interviews had been conducted. When a ‘hearing papers bundle’ was requested a few supporting emails were circulated prior to the hearing.

At the hearing Grant’s caseworker had to ask HR to intervene to ensure the hearing was run in accordance with the policy.  It became apparent that the school intended to simply present what it thought the facts were and then move on to apply a sanction. The school had not sought advice on running employment processes and were likely to head towards an unfair process.

Grant’s caseworker ensured that HR advised on the school on process.  The case for the subscriber, which had been prepared in advance by Edapt with Grant, was presented and questions were asked of the school’s case. 

Without the Edapt caseworker involved this would have ended in a short meeting with a sanction being applied. There was no intention at the outset to ask the subscriber to even present their case.

Once process was corrected, the Edapt caseworker was able to present the failings of the school around the allegation. There were issues relating  to the  application of other school policies impacting directly on the case and that training had not been done. Most significantly, the only reference to the task being discussed was an innocuous policy reference citing it was in fact a joint responsibility shared with two other staff. The school did not seem to know this.

Failures in process and procedure pointed out by Grant’s caseworker along with a strong case for lack of clarity on job roles and responsibilities were clear.

The Outcome

It is not uncommon for schools that do not run formal HR processes very often (if at all) to not have a firm understanding of what needs to happen. It is Edapt’s experience that often senior staff have little HR training. This is compounded at times when they do not know even to involve HR or what HR’s function should be. In general terms, as soon as any sense of disciplinary, capability or grievance in particular are mentioned, HR should be involved from the outset. These are formal processes embedded in employment law.

In this case, the fundamental lack of investigation, interview, due process, documentation and understanding led to a predictable outcome. There was no further action. The school acknowledged that lessons learned by the school would clarify roles and processes moving forward.

The subscriber had never been part of a disciplinary investigation process and, without Edapt’s keen eye for detail and ability to steer a flawed process, would possibly have ended up with a sanction which was totally inappropriate.

Grant was bruised by the process but relieved that a just outcome was achieved.

Guidance can be found here: https://www.edapt.org.uk/support/knowledge-base/what-can-i-expect-in-a-disciplinary-meeting/

Find out more about the service we provide at Edapt: https://www.edapt.org.uk/