should extra hours have been offered to all?

[IPredictADiet]

just pondering, really.
a colleague planned a 3month secondment. Funding was arranged for some extra hours - the equivalent of one day per week - to cover parts of his workload. The extra hours were not offered to members of the team. Instead, the manager arranged for a friend, from another team, but still within the same profession, to come and cover the work.
The first we heard was when this chap arrived at his desk! Would there have been any obligation for the boss to offer the hours within the team, or to interview generally? we are a very right-on, public sector office if that makes any difference....

On the assumption that you all have full job descriptions and that the work the replacement will be doing needs to be done during normal office hours, then I do not see how it would be possible to offer it to existing workers.

Also, if the funding covers only standard rate pay, not overtime, it may not be possible to farm it out to those prepared to work for longer.

Whether the inward secondment was properly advertised is not clear from your post. But if it is a specific skills set temporary transfer within an organisation, then it may well be OK.

thanks. it would be possible for the team to cover the work in office hours.
3 of us are part-time and would gladly have picked up the extra hours. there was no advert.