We have a teacher (HoD), currently full time, who has requested flexible working to change to part time working, reducing his TT to 0.8 or potentially 0.6 and giving up all pastoral responsiblities (he is currently a tutor).  He has a fairly high absence record due to ill health, but for a variety of reasons, not one specific cause.  He lives a considerable distance from the school and is finding the commute onerous and also he does not respond well at stressful times of the year, eg courswork deadlines cause him "work related stress".  He has not given health issues as a reason for his request, though he did mention the commuting.

We have turned down his request, having put a number of compromise positions to him which he has declined.  There are clear business reasons for doing so, which fall within the 8 admissible reasons, including inability to re-distribute workload (we do not have any more full time staff to put into his tutoring role if he gives this up), and detriment to pupil's learning, as he is the only subject specialist and the quality of the teaching would suffer if we used other staff to cover the teaching he does not want to do.  He wants to retain all of his exam classes and not teach KS3, but also wants to work 4 days per week - it is also impossible to timetable this.

Since we turned down his request, he has told us that his GP has recommended that he reduce his workload in this way.  He has now also just been off sick for 4 days, and has returned with  a doctor's note to say that he should do core teaching only, and be excused all other duties on the grounds of acute rhinitis (he is a DT teacher) exacerbated by work environment (he tells me this is the dust created in DT - although extraction is properly managed and monitored), and work related stress.  The sick notes specifically requests altered hours and amended duties - "no additional cover work, no duties, no work outside of core teaching hours".

He has also just sent in an appeal to our Governors about the rejection of his FWR.  

My questions are:

Are we still within our rights to refuse the request given that it is still impossible for us to accommodate despite the health grounds he now raises?

Is there any danger that he can claim to be suffering from a disability?

Does the appeal simply consider the case on the evidence available at the time the request was rejected, or do they need to take into account the GPs return to work note now?

Would it be wise to send him to Occ Health (we do not have our own, but I can arrange)?

Can we challenge the return to work note?  The GP quotes the "work environment" which this person describes to me as the dusty cold DT workshop, but states that the teaching must remain, but the duties, less stressful and carried out in non-dusty and warm environments, must be dropped!  This seems contradictory.

He has told me he wants to retire and would have gone this year, but financially this is not possible for him.  Would early retirement on health grounds be an option we could offer to support?

Thank you!

Lesley