Can a school give a teacher a promotion without giving other teachers the chance to apply?

[DrSeussPHD]

Just as the post title suggests.
A senior leader is retiring and I've heard her role is to be given to another teacher in the school without an application process. Is this allowed?

No

To what benefit would such a process be?

They want to appoint person A
Person A wants the role and may have been offered a similar role elsewhere and has given the SLT a choice to either promote them or lose them.

If a longer recruitment process were to happen the result would be the same. Don't be so naive as to think a non-preferred candidate would miraculously beat the pre-selected preferred candidate in any kind of scoring system.

Yes, a school can promote someone without giving others a chance to apply. There is no law requiring schools to advertise vacancies, either internally or externally. And, as the previous poster says, if they know who they want to appoint, advertising the role would be a waste of everybody's time.

Gosh, v surprised at this.

Can’t see any reason why not. There always seems to be this thought that companies/employers ‘have’ to advertise jobs. I’ve never seen a law that states this, used to be a union rep and never remember this ‘law’ actually being law. TBH, it’s actually preferable than advertising jobs, people applying, wasting their time prepping, getting nervous waiting when they have no chance of the job anyway.

An employer can have a policy to always advertise and recruit competitively. But more often than not this is used as a way to put the preferred shoe-in candidate through their paces without any intention of appointing anyone else. It's a massive waste of time for jobhunters to go through all that stress when they never actually stand a chance. The organisation can benefit hugely as the interview day can have the effect of a free day of consultancy with half a dozen highly qualified and experienced professionals presenting their ideas for how to best benefit the organisation. And sometimes you don't want the preferred candidate to be too cocky and complacent so it's better to make them sweat for it. But it's at the cost of the interview panel having to give up a day of their normal activities so it sometimes is better not to bother.

Yes. They do it all the time. It's very unfair, but that's what happens.

I'm a teacher in a state school, I have had several promotions by being offered them internally, no advertising. The job I'm in now I in fact got almost 10 years ago because my predecessor was retiring and I had met him at a training event, he called me, asked if I was interested, he put my name forward to the head, she called me in for a chat before they went to advertising - obviously liked what she saw and I was offered the job.

I'm also a union rep in the school, as said above, its a myth that jobs have to be advertised - if there is a preferred candidate its better they are not as it saves a lot of wasted time to other candidates and money to the school.

The law of course would be the pesky equal opportunities legislation. If people were just appointed then there would be little diversity. In this case I imagine it would depend on the policy of the employer. I'd be surprised it would be just appoint.

Its best practice to do so but not illegal for a HR POV.

In my school it's not done. It has to be advertised internally. Could go to governors.

When I was a governor I was told that the only job that has to be advertised externally is the Head Teacher.

Yes

My job was advertised internally on the school website for 72 hours. No one else would have been able to apply in that time.

It wasn't for an SLT post it was a regular teacher post I was supply but the same applies.

It makes sense to do this quite often.

Several years ago I was seconded to a post which I did very well, 2 years in they had funding to make the job permanent and realistically, no-one would get it over me but we still had to go through the rigmarole of advertising it and me applying for it. I didn't have to interview again though.

It was a waste of everyones time and a waste of money advertising it.

If the school or organisation knows who they want, they should just appoint them.

I say this not as the recipient of such beneficence but watching DH recently spend hours on an application when it was absolutely clear it was going to one person already in the school.

Advertising jobs in this manner is window dressing 'good governance' I guess.

But for the role DH applied for, they claimed to have over 30 applications for a senior role with a very detailed application, and yet he was told no in less than 24 hours. They didn't even pretend to have read all of them (and yes, he was qualified for the role.)

Asked for earlier post to be deleted as had my partial postcode. Here it is what was deleted.

The 'benefit' would be that a) the school might get a better qualified/experienced employee b) they might end up at employment tribunal, accused of discrimination ... which they can't then disprove.
Dangerous strategy in my opinion, though I recognise that an organisation has the right to promote internally and this is often necessary.

That would depend on the diversity already in the school surely.

You need to consider every candidate fairly for each and every role, the existing diversity mix shouldn't be relevant.

As many PP have said, advertising a role is not a legal requirement but it is poor practice to assume you know the best candidate without considering all potential applicants and leaves you running the risk of claims that you have not undertaken fair and legal recruitment, you cannot evidence your decision making was not biased.