Here's a weird one for you

EdgarAllenPoo

My mother has been on sick leave from the health board for nearly two years she is a permanent officer and so her grade and salary are secure but she has been told that they have no job for her to go back to.
They are obligded to find her a position at the same grade but they have given her job to someone else.

Rather than wait for them to offer her something (it's become apparent that they are trying to stall and maybe convince her to resign) she would like to take unpaid leave(she stopped getting paid by them in March anyway) and do something else.
Can they refuse her leave if they aren't paying her anyway and aren't looking for a postion for her?

seamus

I don't understand entirely. Now that she's no longer on sick leave, she wants to just take a career break, but maintain her grade so she can go back whenever she feels like it?

They can certainly refuse her leave.

EdgarAllenPoo

Under the terms of her contract she is entitled to return from sick leave or a career break at the same officer grade and pay as when she left. She wanted to go back to her old job but they gave that to someone else, they don't want to move that person and so they are telling her they have nothing for her. At the moment she has had no money comming in since March and may have a job that she can do outside the health board but it doesn't have the same job security.

The whole point is if they aren't trying to find something for her why would they refuse her leave to find something herself?

seamus

It's probably different because it's the civil service, but I couldn't see any other company allowing her leave to go find something else.

I don't know what the legislation is as regards coming back from sick leave to find your job gone - I would have thought that they still have to pay you, even if they have no job for you, or let you go.

leeroybrown

If I remember correctly the Civil Service have some rather generous unpaid leave allowances. A former co-worker spent 18 months travelling the world with a guy who worked in the Civil Service. He walked straight back into his job at the same grade afterwards.

GDM, unless someone with a very good knowledge of Civil Service HR policy reads this and responds you probably won't be able to get close to a definitive answer as it is unlike most other situations. I would suggest that your mother will probably have to ask a Civil Service department or a union to find this out.

EdgarAllenPoo

She rang her boss this morning(but rang the HR department so she'd know if he was telling porkys) and there is no problem getting the leave, it'll take three days at most to get everything set and sorted.

Santa Claus

If she wants to go back to her previous job she should take up her case with the Public Service Commission.
There must be some sort of appeals procedure for being told that she has no job to go back to if she has been vertified as being medically fit to return to work

EdgarAllenPoo

Not to worry, at this very moment she's negotiating a contract with a private sector company for more money than her boss makes. Now that's telling them where to stick their job.