Time to train meeting letter

If an employee submits an application for time to train, you’ll need to ensure you properly follow the designated statutory procedure in dealing with it. This starts with arranging a meeting with the employee, for which you can use our time to train meeting letter.

Meeting to discuss

Within 28 days of receipt of your employee’s application you must set up a meeting with them to discuss it. Use our Time to Train Meeting Letter for this. Our letter sets out the proposed date, time and location of the meeting (the time and place of the meeting must be convenient to both you and your employee), who will be chairing it, who else will be present and what will happen following the meeting. Be aware there’s no need for a meeting if you’re happy to simply accept the employee’s request on the basis of the information set out in their application - in this case, you can proceed straight to informing them of your decision in writing. If you feel additional information is required to give the request proper consideration, you can ask the employee to provide it and if they refuse to do so, their request can be treated as withdrawn and you can inform them in writing accordingly.

Right to be accompanied

The employee has a right to be accompanied at the time to train meeting by a fellow employee and this is also covered in our letter. The employee’s companion can address the meeting and confer with the employee during it, but they may not answer questions independently of the employee. If you act in breach of the employee’s statutory right to be accompanied, this can result in an award of up to two weeks’ pay by an employment tribunal (at the statutory cap on a week’s pay). If their companion is unable to attend the meeting, the employee can ask for it to be rearranged. The time the employee proposes must be convenient for all attendees and should take place within seven days of the date you originally proposed for the meeting. If the employee fails more than once to attend the meeting without reasonable cause, you can treat their request as withdrawn and you should then confirm this to them in writing.

Consideration of request

At and after the meeting you must consider the employee’s request and make a practical business assessment on how it could be accommodated. You must then notify your decision in writing to the employee within 14 days of the meeting. Where you’re content to accept the employee’s request but believe their training need can be met in a different way to their request proposal (for example, delivering the requested training in-house rather than using an external training provider), you’ll need to discuss this with them at the meeting with a view to reaching agreement, before reaching your final decision and confirming it in writing.