How much time do they need to commit?
Magistrates typically require at least 13 days a year out of their usual working time to volunteer. There are also, additional training days – particularly in their first year. But these commitments can often be scheduled flexibly, with many magistrates balancing their time in court with their jobs.
What are your responsibilities as an employer?
Employers are legally obliged to allow time off work for employees to volunteer in a public role like magistrates. But how many days you allow is at your discretion. This includes the decision about whether any time off is offered as paid or unpaid leave. Many employers choose to offer at least some of this time as paid leave.
Businesses supporting their people to volunteer as magistrates see a real return on their investment.
Being a magistrate helps develop interpersonal, decision making and analytical skills. It’s a great thing to do for society, the individual and your business.
Benefits of having magistrates in your organisation
Boost job satisfaction
Encouraging employees to volunteer in roles that give back to and impact the local community enhances their job satisfaction and pride. It also helps retain talent and develop future leaders with diverse skills.
Develop employee skillsets
Magistrates receive excellent training covering a range of transferrable skills, from critical analysis and problem solving to influencing others and decision making.
Attracting new talent
Offering volunteering opportunities, such as becoming magistrates, demonstrates your commitment to employee volunteering. This highlights your values and emphasises personal and professional development.
Actionable steps to support your employees in their magistrate duties
Update your HR policies to offer:
- Paid or unpaid time off: specify in your volunteering policy if magistrates’ court time can be included in working hours, taken as annual leave, or managed through flexible working. This should be similar to policies you already have for jury service and time off for armed forces reservists.
- Learning and development: highlight in your policy whether sitting as a magistrate contributes towards the employee’s continued personal development time allocation.
Promote the magistracy to your employees through internal communication channels
- Intranet: publish accessible information on your internal intranet/HR space to ensure the opportunity is open to all levels of staff.
- Volunteer cap: decide whether to limit the number of employees volunteering at any one time.
- Induction packs: include information about our volunteer and CSR policy, including the role of magistrates, to our new starter induction pack.
Greater London Authority provides paid time off for public duties – up to five days per year for magistrates. We also offer up to three days of volunteering leave and flexible working arrangements, such as compressed hours, which could support individuals to take on ongoing public duties or other voluntary roles outside of work.
Sample text for your policy
Sample one: why our organisation supports employees becoming magistrates
- Community contribution: people who sit as magistrates make a valuable contribution to their local communities.
- Training and development: we are committed to investing in our employees’ training and development, including supporting them to benefit from the excellent training magistrates receive.
- Skill development: supporting you to sit as magistrates helps you develop a range of valuable and transferable skills, including:
- Critical analysis
- Complex problem solving
- Conflict resolution
Sample two: how we will support you with time away from work
- Paid leave: we are happy to provide you with up to 13 additional days’ paid leave to cover sitting as a magistrate; OR
- Unpaid leave: while we cannot provide paid leave for you to volunteer as a magistrate, we are happy to give you unpaid time off; OR
- Combination: we will cover your pay/salary for X days a year to enable you to fulfil your duties as a magistrate. The remaining time will need to be taken as annual or unpaid leave.
Sample three: agreeing on days for magistrate duties
- Flexible scheduling: We will always do our best to be flexible and accommodate your magistrate commitments, but we would ideally like X days notice; OR
- Pre-arranged dates: We would prefer you to sit as a magistrate on set, pre-arranged dates that are mutually agreeable; OR
- Local arrangements: Your line manager will arrange your time off with you locally.
Further reading
The Magistrates Association has guidance on reviewing your public duty policy – this makes specific reference to magistrates and includes guidelines on the number of days’ leave permitted. It also provides some practical advice on how you can support your employees to be magistrates. If you are interested in working with the Magistrates Association to promote routes into the magistracy, please get in touch with the membership team.