Question: I am a parent governor at a primary school and recently there has been a grievance issued against the headteacher by 14 members of staff. The chair of governors has written his report (although the governing body has not officially been told of the grievance) and the staff involved are going to appeal. I understand that it will be up to the appeals committee to make a judgement. What are the procedures involved and what sort of support are we likely to have?

Joan Sallis replies: I want to be helpful if I can but from your letter I am not sure of the sequence of events here. First, every governing body is supposed to have its own grievance procedure which sets out clearly the steps to be taken if a case arises. You are right in saying that the decision will be made by a committee and that generally the philosophy in these cases is that not too many other people should be involved. It’s not clear in this case what part the chair’s report plays, whether a grievance committee has been set up in accordance with whatever the policy says, whether you yourself are on the committee, how far the committee’s deliberations have gone, what part the head and chair have played and so on. How does the question of an appeal come into it if a decision hasn’t been made yet? If a governing body needs help with any of this it should be available from the LEA’s Human Resources Department.

It is very important to abide by the procedures laid down in the policy. The consequences of a successful challenge in a wrongful dismissal appeal to a tribunal, say, are serious. My guess is that you are not on the committee, that you don’t know how it works, but that you are very uneasy lest it is being ‘sewn up’ by the head and chair, though I may be wildly wrong of course. But it isn’t beyond the bounds of possibility and governors should be watchful that it doesn’t happen. An accusation against the head by 14 primary school teachers is a major incident, not like three in a secondary school.