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Section 3 - Key Stages of the Appointment Process
The key stages for parental involvement in the appointment process set out in the Regulations are:
- Regulation 4 Consultation with Parent Council regarding:
- Appointment Strategies
- Job Remit / Person Specification
- Regulation 5 Short Leet Procedure
- Regulation 6 Appointment Panel
- Regulation 7 Chairing the Panel
Appointment Strategy
Where possible education authorities will give early consideration to appointment procedures. These procedures should enable appointments to be made as expeditiously as possible and whenever practicable in time for the beginning of the following term. Authorities already have existing locally agreed procedures, and indeed some already involve parents early in the recruitment and selection process. There is a desire to develop this good practice further to ensure that parents have reasonable warning of when a vacancy is likely to arise and the necessary procedures for filling the post.
Regulation 4 requires authorities to consult and pay due regard to the views of parents when drawing up appointment strategies and job/person specifications for any post. When considering new appointment procedures, authorities should consider engaging with parents in developing the policy to determine what such procedures might be. This could be done through correspondence with all Parent Councils or through local network meetings
Advertising
National open advertising of vacancies for Headteacher and Deputy Headteacher posts should remain the norm. Councils have statutory obligations under current employment and equality legislation to promote open and fair competition. Equally employers also have statutory obligations in relation to existing employees. The circumstances of each case will require to be considered, under reference to the relevant legislation, and there will be occasions where a more flexible approach to advertising might be appropriate. Examples of such situations might include school mergers and closures or supporting individual professional development. Parents need to be clear about when an authority is not required to advertise nationally. Authorities should therefore ensure that Parent Councils are informed of the locally agreed procedures.
It may be that the authority determines that internal advertising within the authority might be more appropriate. In such circumstances similar selection procedures to those outlined below should be applied.
Job Remits/Person Specifications
The earlier in the process that parents are involved the better equipped they are to deal with the final selection process. Parents add value to the process through their knowledge of the school and local area. Authorities will have some generic standard requirements for senior posts in schools. It is recognised that job remits are a matter for LNCT agreement and subsequent job sizing. However there may be times when more specific issues need to be considered with regard to specific skills and competences for certain posts. Authorities are encouraged to discuss such situations with the relevant Parent Councils.
Regulation 4 requires authorities to consult and pay due regard to the views of Parent Councils when drawing up strategies and job / person specifications for any post(other than one relating to appointment, on an acting basis, of Headteacher or Deputy Headteacher). This does not entail co- authorship of such specifications, nor is it intended that it should interfere with the LNCT process. Authorities should give the Parent Council reasonable time for response but, when developing their recruitment strategies, may wish to set a deadline for responses to be provided within a specified timescale. They must then have regard to the views of the Parent Council when taking matters forward.
Leeting Process
The leeting process for any Headteacher or Deputy Headteacher post must provide for robust professional screening. Authorities need to ensure that those candidates going forward to final interview are both professionally qualified for the post in terms of assessing against the competences contained in the Standard for Headship and ready for the post to which they are applying. Any short leet procedure will require a high level of professional input.
Whilst recognising that this is a key area for the authority, parents, through their awareness of the local characteristics of the school and local area, will bring much to this stage and should be actively encouraged to participate. While parental participation is not obligatory, Parent Councils must, in accordance with the regulations, be given the opportunity to get involved.
Under Regulation 5 the Parent Council can choose whether it wishes to be represented in the leeting process. The Parent Council might (under section 14(3) of the Act) also choose to have someone who is not on the Parent Council to assist it in discharging its functions. The leeting process is also an area where additional expertise could be drawn from a local authority area parent network (detailed below) trained in the appointment procedures.
The size and make-up of any leeting panel will be a matter for the education authority to determine as part of their appointment process.
Final Selection
Currently it is standard practice for the final selection process to be wholly interview-based. It is recognised that authorities will seek to continuously improve their strategies for recruitment and promotion of all staff which may include alternative procedures such as assessment centres. Innovative practices of this nature are encouraged, on the basis that they are sufficiently flexible to enable appropriate parental involvement. However, any such innovative practice must still include an appointment panel in accordance with the requirements of the Regulations.
Each authority will wish to establish local guidelines for appointment panels which meet the legislative requirements as to the level of membership as set out in the Regulations. Appointments panels should always look for a consensus on who is best for the job.
Composition of the Appointment Panel
Regulation 6 sets the minimum requirement for parental involvement on any selection panel, by means of the Parent Council, at one third of the panel's membership.
Regulation 7 also stipulates that the chair of the appointment panel should be as follows:
- for all Headteacher appointments, the chair must be someone nominated by the authority, and
- for Deputy Headteacher posts the chair should normally be the Headteacher or Acting Headteacher of the school to which the appointment is to be made.
- Authorities will wish to consider carefully those rare situations in which an Acting Headteacher might be deemed inappropriate, in terms of satisfactory arrangements being in place for appointing an alternative chair.
The Act also enables a Parent Council, where it so wishes, to nominate someone who is not a member of the Parent Council to represent the parental view. It may be that someone from the wider Parent Forum, local community or a local authority parent network, is trained in recruitment and selection techniques.
As with the guidance for leeting procedures the education authority must invite parental representation on the appointment panel. However it remains up to the Parent Council whether or not it wishes to participate. Given the value that parents can bring to the selection process it is anticipated that non participation of parents would be the exception rather than the norm.
The size and detailed make-up of any final appointment panel will, subject to the requirements of the regulations, be a matter for the authority to determine as part of the local authority appointments process. Whilst it is a matter for the Parent Council to determine who should best represent its interests, it is envisaged that at least one of the parental representatives would be a parent with a child at the school.
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