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claiming his discharge is based on false grounds must have regard for the position of the departmental head. It is therefore necessary to find a way to accommodate the three needs the 'face' of authority, the protection of the efficient probationer from internal intimidation and the proper enforcement of the law.
'stand in front of the bus'
If 303 is revoked, such officers who do (i.e. execute their duties without fear or favour and take the consequences for so doing) will while on probation have no protection at all.
To overcome this means of internal intimidation of probationer subordinates by corrupt superiors, 303 should be strengthened. I ask Your Excellency to favourably consider that the process of giving
'progress' reports on probationers' careers, their conduct of their duties, their personal characteristics etc etc, upon which reports a probationer's future and livelihood depend, should be conducted as follows:-
(a) all comments, opinions, statements etc by the
assessing officer should be recorded in writing and should be supported by written evidence of specific incidents in terms of date, time and place etc etc;
(b) the probationer should by right read and, if he
wishes to, comment upon any point in the progress report, or add any matter he thinks relevant, at the time the report is made, his comments being recorded in writing by him on the same sheets of paper, the report and every cheet being signed by him;
(c) the probationer should be given a photostatic
copy of the report and any comments he has made on it;
(a) the original signed copy should be filed in the
probationer's Personal Record of Service; (e) when final assessment is made by a departmental
head, the head should refer in his decision to the specific items itemised in specific reports and should give a copy of this to the probationor; (f) quarterly progress reports should be shown to the probationer by the assessing officer, and commented upon by the probationer, in the presence of the assessing officer's superior (e.g. where the assessing officer is a police divisional superintendent, the report should be presented to the probationer in front of the police district commander).
Thus when a departmental head comes to final assessment of whether or not an officer on probation should be confirmed in his appointment, both may be sure that the departmental head has a full record of the probationer's service and not just a collection of unseen and unchallengable reports which, for the purpose of intimidating or removing an efficient officer, might have an 'unfavourable nature without any justification.
Your Excellency, if in support of Sir Alistair's stronger 'master/ servant' relationship position, will find such a practice in conflict with traditional approaches to discipline in hierarchical
...OVER/