Constitution of appeal panels
2.—(1) An appeal pursuant to arrangements made by a local education authority under regulation 7(1) is to be to an appeal panel constituted in accordance with this paragraph.
(2) An appeal panel is to consist of three or five members appointed by the local education authority from —
(a)persons who are eligible to be lay members;
(b)persons who are currently working in education or education management; and
(c)persons who are or have been governors of maintained schools, provided they have served as a governor for at least twelve consecutive months within the last six years and have not been teachers or head teachers during the last five years.
(3) Of the members of an appeal panel —
(a)where it consists of three members one must be appointed from each of the three categories in sub-paragraph (2);
(b)where it consists of five members —
(i)one must be a person who is eligible to be a lay member and is appointed as such;
(ii)two must be persons falling within sub-paragraph (2)(b); and
(iii)two must be persons falling within sub-paragraph (2)(c).
(4) For the purposes of this paragraph and paragraph 4 a person is eligible to be a lay member if he or she is a person without personal experience in the management of any school or the provision of education in any school (disregarding any such experience as a governor or in any other voluntary capacity).
(5) Sufficient persons may be appointed by the local education authority under this paragraph to enable two or more appeal panels to sit at the same time.
(6) No person may be a member of an appeal panel if he or she is disqualified by virtue of sub-paragraph (7).
(7) The following persons are disqualified for membership of an appeal panel —
(a)any member of the local education authority or of the governing body of the school in question;
(b)the head teacher of, or any teacher at, the school in question or any person who has held any such position within the previous five years;
(c)any person employed by the local education authority other than as a head teacher or a teacher;
(d)any person who has, or at any time has had, any connection with —
(i)the local education authority or the school, or with any person within paragraph (b) or (c), or
(ii)the pupil in question or the incident leading to his or her exclusion,
of a kind which might reasonably be taken to raise doubts about his or her ability to act impartially.
(8) A person employed by the local education authority as a head teacher or a teacher is not to be taken, by reason only of that employment, to have such a connection with the authority as is mentioned in sub-paragraph (7)(d).
(9) Where, at any time after an appeal panel consisting of five members has begun to consider an appeal, any of the members —
(a)dies, or
(b)becomes unable through illness to continue as a member,
the panel may continue with their consideration and determination of the appeal so long as the number of the remaining members is not less than three and the requirements of sub-paragraph (3)(a) are satisfied.
(10) An appeal panel must be chaired by the person appointed as a lay member.