The School Committee Meeting

The SC will check that applicants have been consistently assessed across the FCs, clearly indicating in its minutes for each application any changes from the FC evaluations and the reasons, as well as whether the application for promotion is supported. 

Each member of the SC has a responsibility to ensure its business is conducted in accordance with this guidance; the Chair of each committee has a particular role in this regard. Each committee member, and those attending the committee meetings, should ensure that:

  • they are familiar with this guidance (the Chair will ask each member for confirmation at the start of the meeting); 
  • in considering the applications, they adhere to the Assessment Criteria and do not import additional considerations into their evaluations which may be construed as additional criteria; 
  • they treat Indicators of Excellence as being suggestive in nature and non-exhaustive; not all indicators will be relevant to all applicants; 
  • they are aware of their responsibilities relating to equality, diversity and inclusion, including the potential risk of unconscious bias, and have completed the appropriate training (see Key Principles) to ensure their considerations are collective, fair, impartial and evidence-based;
  • they consider whether allowance should be made for Contextual Factors; and
  • they state any declarations of interest to enable the committee to agree appropriate action to be taken before consideration of applications.

The Chair of each FC should attend part of the relevant SC meeting in a non-voting capacity to present cases and provide clarification where needed. 

The relevant Lead HR Business Partner will act as Secretary, providing advice and guidance and, together with the Chair, overseeing the fair and effective operation of the procedure. 

Any material submitted that is not in accordance with the guidance should be returned, either to the applicant or Secretary of the previous committee as appropriate, for necessary revision and re-submission in advance of the date on which the agenda and documents are to be circulated to members of the relevant committee.

The Secretary will prepare and circulate the documentation not less than a week in advance of the meeting, including: 

  • an agenda;
  • a link to this guidance;
  • the complete documentation for each applicant;
  • comprehensive lists of all applicants for each office/post; and
  • the approved FC minutes including its evaluations, comments and ranking.

The full documentation (applications, references/statements, completed assessment records and minutes) should then be forwarded to the Secretary of the VCC. 

Applicants must not be informed of the outcome of the SC’s evaluation or provided with feedback at this stage (see Outcome and Feedback for further information).

School Committee Minutes

Following the meeting, the SC will provide a fairly and objectively worded set of minutes that: 

  • confirms whether: 
    • an application has been treated as multidisciplinary, 
    • an application is to be referred to the SC from an FC in a different School,
    • if allowance has been made for Contextual Factors, and/or 
    • if there has been a departure from the standard scoring model and if so, the reasons;
  • confirms any declarations of interest stated by committee members, and states the agreed action to address them;
  • provides a reasoned justification of the agreed evaluations and its determination of the rank order for each office/post, including clear reasons for any adjustment in the FC evaluations, banding, scoring. If there is complete agreement between a FC and a SC, no comment will be necessary;
  • provides a justification where high scores have been awarded that indicate an exceptional contribution;
  • records where the committee’s assessment differs from that suggested by a referee(s) and where it has either taken strong account of, or apparently disregarded, a single critical reference amongst a group of positive references; 
  • provides feedback statements to be shared with unsuccessful applicants;
  • more information on the preparation of feedback statements can be found below; and
  • reference may be made to comments contained in referees’ statements; however, any such reference must be anonymised.

Feedback Statements

The SC must prepare written feedback statements for unsuccessful applicants.  The purpose of the feedback is to provide an unsuccessful applicant with a clear sense of what they would need to do in order to raise the level of their achievement to the standard required to obtain promotion in a future exercise. 

Feedback statements must therefore provide clear information on the areas in which improvements are required, referring to the relevant Assessment Criteria and Indicators of Excellence, and provide practical advice on how the applicant might achieve these improvements. For example, they may suggest examples of service contributions that they would expect to see from someone at the level for which the applicant has applied.