Employment advice - Temp contract

[Newnameoldme01]

i am looking for advice for a friend, I have changed username as the details will be quite specific and I don’t want this linked to my usual account.

friend has been on a temp contract for over 4 years and is now entitled to a permanent contract (confirmed by HR) the role they are in became a permanent position and was advertised externally,they were unsuccessful at interview and two outside hires were brought in, now there is still a position in the team but friend has been advised there will be a permanent position within the company that is theirs automatically, no advertising etc but it means waiting for a vacancy, friend is still in current role but feels uncomfortable as they weren’t good enough to be hired at interview so isn’t sure how getting the remaining role would acceptable.

what is the legal position here, have the company made a mistake in hiring external candidates when an employee was due a permanent contract, does anyone have any advice on moving this forward?

I couldn’t say for sure without the specifics, but no the company have not necessarily made any mistake here.

HR have said they are entitled to a permanent role and and have confirmed they will provide one.

They are not entitled to a specific role though, and if there were better candidates at interview then them not being offered that role is not inherently unfair.

They may have been good enough to hire but the othersl candidates were better. Or they know there is a role coming up that would be more suited to them. Or they may just get slotted into the next available role.
Whether they want to wait for that is up to them but they already have a de facto permanent contract and the job market is pretty flat, so they might as well wait it out.

Is this in a school?

No, not a school but public sector

Are permanent positions advertised as subject to fair and open competition? This is why temporary and fixed term short term contracts are usually clearly identified along with a statement that they are not subject to fair and open competition. This avoids people gaining promotion unfairly.

Why was the person on a temporary contract for 4 years, do they work in digital on a higher salary than that normal for the grade?

They started with the company on a temp contract as they were covering for a person on secondment, that person was permanent and then took the secondment as a permanent position so my friend kept getting their contact extended. The last extension took them over their 4 year date and the interviews were the following week.

When did the person they were covering take up the new appointment on a permanent basis? Did they advertise the cover job straight away?

The person took up the new post about two years ago, post was first advertised march of this year

We would certainly advertise the permanent role and expect the temp to compete, but we would be under pressure to advertise the job asap as being in post obviously gives the temp an advantage in applying / interviewing. Was your friend employed through an agency or on temporary promotion from a permanent internal role?

the temp position was advertised externally and my friend applied and got the position.

Apart from being terribly sluggish in advertising the permanent role, I don’t think her employer has done wrong in not giving her the permanent role. In fact, depending on their rules on appointment, they would have been wrong to just give her the permanent role without running a fair recruitment process.

Certainly it will be uncomfortable for her to not be appointed to the permanent role; has she asked for feedback? Also, why does the employer think they can offer her another permanent role when they couldn’t offer her the role she was doing as a temporary- is it a lower grade / lower paid position?