Hello,
Never thought I would post a thread on here like this but here I am.
I was dismissed from my role at the Civil Service on 14/06/16 due to excess sick absence. The absence was 11.5 days in a year against my trigger point of 11 and is due to an underlying health condition treated as a 'disability' by the DWP. I had been employed with them for just over 10 years. My job role changed in 2013 and my trigger point was reduced from 20 days to 11 days when I started the new job despite it being within the DWP and our contracts being honored.
The decision breakdown given has been challenged and I wrote an appeal and attended the meeting today. No idea how well it went, I wrote a 4 page appeal breaking down each point of the decision and found that the appeals manager today asked me to go through the entire thing again strangely leading me to believe it may not be successful as I had been warned by the union and other managers that the appeals process tends to be a bit of 'lip service' with managers very rarely overturning colleagues decisions - I took this with a pinch of salt as there were a few large glaring errors in the decision (including a specific line in the DM guidance about not dismissing someone for being a day or two over their trigger point, I was 0.5 days over) and could not believe law/logic would not dictate but we shall see.
Now I have approached this as reinstatement however due to the nature of the job and the past decade in it or similar roles (CMS/JCP) the few weeks I have had off so far not dealing with queries related to that subject matter has been wonderful!
On top of this I have been given 11 weeks Pay in Lieu and a compensation payment that equals about 6 months of wages (when I say given, I mean I have been told/received the letter but no money yet) and this has really had me thinking about looking elsewhere. Again nowhere in particular but if I could go into a non-office job after this long it might be nice, or go into another administrative job for the council etc.
My issues are currently that it will read 'dismissed' on any CV which will put me at a huge disadvantage unless I am offered my job back, however, after speaking with my union rep (who is nice, helpful but have honestly not been able to overturn any decisions) if I was offered my job back there would be no compensation payment, understandable except for the fact that another point in my appeal is they broke their own timescales at every turn and I have had this process ongoing for 3 months. Should I be offered reinstatement they are then admitting that they were wrong and I don't know but do feel that I would like to take it further as an apology will not suffice. Having worked since I was 16 telling friends and family as well as the worry of looking for a new job, wondering how I would manage financially (single and live by myself) and for the first time actually caused me real stress.
What do people think would be the chances of still getting a compensation payment if reinstatement is offered?
Does anyone have any experience getting another job if they were previously dismissed (due to sickness not gross misconduct)?
If the appeal is rejected it will be taken to the employment tribunal, hopefully by the PCS solicitors but they will only take a case if they have an 80% chance of winning (nevermind i've been paying them for 10 years!) but if not a private solicitor.
Any help/advice appreciated.
Never thought I would post a thread on here like this but here I am.
I was dismissed from my role at the Civil Service on 14/06/16 due to excess sick absence. The absence was 11.5 days in a year against my trigger point of 11 and is due to an underlying health condition treated as a 'disability' by the DWP. I had been employed with them for just over 10 years. My job role changed in 2013 and my trigger point was reduced from 20 days to 11 days when I started the new job despite it being within the DWP and our contracts being honored.
The decision breakdown given has been challenged and I wrote an appeal and attended the meeting today. No idea how well it went, I wrote a 4 page appeal breaking down each point of the decision and found that the appeals manager today asked me to go through the entire thing again strangely leading me to believe it may not be successful as I had been warned by the union and other managers that the appeals process tends to be a bit of 'lip service' with managers very rarely overturning colleagues decisions - I took this with a pinch of salt as there were a few large glaring errors in the decision (including a specific line in the DM guidance about not dismissing someone for being a day or two over their trigger point, I was 0.5 days over) and could not believe law/logic would not dictate but we shall see.
Now I have approached this as reinstatement however due to the nature of the job and the past decade in it or similar roles (CMS/JCP) the few weeks I have had off so far not dealing with queries related to that subject matter has been wonderful!
On top of this I have been given 11 weeks Pay in Lieu and a compensation payment that equals about 6 months of wages (when I say given, I mean I have been told/received the letter but no money yet) and this has really had me thinking about looking elsewhere. Again nowhere in particular but if I could go into a non-office job after this long it might be nice, or go into another administrative job for the council etc.
My issues are currently that it will read 'dismissed' on any CV which will put me at a huge disadvantage unless I am offered my job back, however, after speaking with my union rep (who is nice, helpful but have honestly not been able to overturn any decisions) if I was offered my job back there would be no compensation payment, understandable except for the fact that another point in my appeal is they broke their own timescales at every turn and I have had this process ongoing for 3 months. Should I be offered reinstatement they are then admitting that they were wrong and I don't know but do feel that I would like to take it further as an apology will not suffice. Having worked since I was 16 telling friends and family as well as the worry of looking for a new job, wondering how I would manage financially (single and live by myself) and for the first time actually caused me real stress.
What do people think would be the chances of still getting a compensation payment if reinstatement is offered?
Does anyone have any experience getting another job if they were previously dismissed (due to sickness not gross misconduct)?
If the appeal is rejected it will be taken to the employment tribunal, hopefully by the PCS solicitors but they will only take a case if they have an 80% chance of winning (nevermind i've been paying them for 10 years!) but if not a private solicitor.
Any help/advice appreciated.