We've received a letter from Newcastle tribunals Service a part of which relates to availability of reps at appeal.
"The Tribunal Service ensures where notified, that the availability of representation is taken into account, when allocating hearing dates.
However it is not always possible to adhere to the needs of individual representation or that of an organisation and its own operational arrangements.
Judicial guidance has always directed that we list represented appeal cases to the organisation not the individual representative.
Therefore the onus to provide representation to the appellant as requested is in the organisation and not an indivual employee. In circumstances such as this we look to you to provide a service.
I appreciate this may cause some inconvenience, but in trying to accomodate the requests of representatives we need to ensure there is no detrimental impact on the service we provide appellants"
To say it would cause us "inconvenience" would be an understatement as we provide advice surgeries through our borough which are well attended. If the Tribunals service are unwilling to recognise obligations to manning those then we would be in the position of having to tell some clients we can't rep.
Any other areas received a missive like this?
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