Education (No. 2) Act 1986

37 Appointment of head teacher

(1) The articles of government for every county, controlled, special agreement and maintained special school shall provide—

(a) for it to be the duty of the local education authority not to appoint a person to be the head teacher of the school unless his appointment has been recommended by a selection panel constituted in accordance with the articles;

(b) for it to be the duty of the authority, in the event of the post of head teacher being vacant, to appoint an acting head teacher after consulting the governing body;

(c) for it to be the duty of the authority, before appointing a head teacher, to advertise the vacancy in such publications circulating throughout England and Wales as they consider appropriate;

(d) for it to be the duty of the selection panel constituted in relation to the appointment of a head teacher to interview such applicants for the post as they think fit;

(e) in the event of a failure of the panel to agree on the applicants whom they wish to interview—

(i) for those members of the panel appointed by the governing body to have the right to nominate not more than two applicants to be interviewed by the panel; and

(ii) for the other members of the panel to have the right to nominate not more than two other applicants to be so interviewed ;

(f) for it to be the duty of the panel, where they consider that it is appropriate to do so, to recommend to the authority for appointment as head teacher one of the applicants interviewed by them ;

(g) for it to be the duty of the panel, where they are unable to agree on a person to recommend to the authority—

(i) to repeat (with a view to reaching agreement) such of the steps which they are required to take by virtue of paragraphs (d) to (f) above as they think fit;

(ii) where they have repeated any of those steps and remain unable to agree, or have decided that it is not appropriate to repeat any of them, to require the authority to re-advertise the vacancy; and

(iii) where the vacancy is re-advertised, to repeat all of those steps ;

(h) for it to be the duty of the panel, where the authority decline to appoint a person recommended by them—

(i) where there are applicants for the post whom they have not interviewed, to interview such of those applicants (if any) as they think fit;

(ii) to recommend another of the applicants interviewed by them, if they think fit;

(iii) to ask the authority to re-advertise the vacancy, if they consider that it should be re-advertised ; and

(iv) where the vacancy is re-advertised, to repeat the steps which they are required to take by virtue of paragraphs (d) to (f);

(i) for it to be the duty of the authority to re-advertise the post of head teacher where they are required to do so by the panel; and for the authority to have power to do so, where—

(i) the post has been duly advertised;

(ii) the selection panel have failed to make either a recommendation which is acceptable to the authority or a request that the post be re-advertised; and

(iii) the authority are of the opinion that the panel have had sufficient time in which to carry out their functions; and

(j) for the chief education officer of the authority, or a member of his department nominated by him, to have the right to attend all proceedings of the panel (including interviews) for the purpose of giving advice to members of the panel.

(2) In this section " head teacher " does not include an acting head teacher.