Directors’ Advice Terms and Conditions
How the Directors’ Advisory Service operates
The Directors’ Advisory Service is confidential and exclusive to you as a full IoD member. The service is provided by a bank of third-party advisers, details of which can be found on our website. The advisers offer brief general guidance rather than lengthy consultations. The guidance is provided to you for information purposes. If you intend to rely or act on any guidance given it is recommended that you seek independent legal advice from a qualified solicitor before doing so.
Issues are usually dealt with in one session. Occasionally, one of our advisers may decide that your query may need more than one session and in this event you may need to book another appointment, which will be with the next available adviser.
Scope and boundaries
The Directors’ Advisory Service is available to current UK and direct-paying overseas full Members of the Institute of Directors whose subscriptions are fully paid at the date they use the service. The service is not available to holders of Associate membership.
Advice can only be given to you and not to a member of your staff or family. Advice is only available on the running of your business or your employment and not on personal issues, for family, friends or clients.
If you are a consultant or professional adviser, you cannot pass on advice to your clients. Our advisers will only make reference to matters of English Law. Advice on Scottish law and the law of Northern Ireland is offered by Law Express, the provider of the IoD legal helpline.
Advice is given verbally only and not in writing.
The service does not give advice on litigation, investment, pensions, import / export, Consumer Credit Act, very specialised areas, nor on any personal matters.
Neither the IoD, nor our advisers can act for you or represent you in legal proceedings as part of this arrangement. If you wish to discuss this further with one of our advisers, you must do this as part of a separate engagement between you are the adviser directly.
These terms and conditions shall govern your use of the IoD’s Information and Advisory Service (IAS), including the Directors’ Advisory Service. Additional terms and conditions may also apply to other services provided by the IoD and these will be explained or made available to you if you use these services. By using or accessing the IoD’s IAS you will be deemed to have accepted these terms in full.
If you do not agree with these terms and conditions, please refrain from using the IAS service.
Without prejudice to the IoD’s rights under these terms and conditions, if a member is in breach of the terms and conditions in any way, or if the IoD reasonably suspects that the member has breached these terms and conditions in any way, the IoD may:
- Send the member one or more formal warnings;
- Temporarily suspend the member’s access to the IAS service;
- Permanently prohibit the member from access to and use of the IAS service;
- Commence legal action against the member for breach of contract.
Appointments
Advice is given by appointment only, subject to availability of a relevant adviser. Please see the list of current advisers. Up to four appointments per membership year may be taken and they must be booked in advance. Currently all appointments are delivered by phone call. Telephone calls last 30 minutes and advisers are given 30 minutes to review paperwork.
Paperwork
If paperwork is involved, our advisers can generally agree to consider up to 10 pages maximum, although members’ own Directors’ Service Agreements may in certain circumstances be considered in full if time allows.
If documentation is provided, our advisers will require additional reading time, assuming the space is available, in which case it may be necessary to count the appointment as two Advisory sessions.
Any paperwork must be in your possession at the time of booking and forwarded to the adviser by email to reach them by 3pm the day before the session at the latest.
Appointments cancelled due to paperwork not being received will be counted as one of your sessions.
The service cannot draft or redraft documents.
Nature of Advice
All advice given to a member as part of the Directors Advisory Service is for initial guidance only. It will be general in nature and should not be treated as a replacement for full professional advice. The decision whether to seek such professional advice rests solely with the member. Whilst the IoD has worked carefully to select a panel of advisers with a broad range of experience, the IoD cannot warrant the accuracy or suitability of any advice given to any members by the advisers. By agreeing to these terms and conditions the member acknowledges that the IoD has no liability for advice given.
Data Protection
GDPR is a regulation that applies to all EU countries, and has been incorporated in UK law as the Data Protection Act. In order to comply with the DPA, it is essential that data anonymization or password protection is applied to all emails and documentation containing personal data. Where a third party’s personal data is referred to in documentation, this must be redacted or anonymized. Email should also be encrypted to protect the content from being read by other entities than the intended recipients.
Cancellations and late arrivals
Unless more than one full working days’ notice has been given, late cancellations or unkept appointments will be counted as one session.
If you call or arrive late for an appointed session, this will reduce your allocated time limit, rather than allow your session to overrun and delay the adviser’s next appointment.
If an adviser has to cancel or change an appointment, for example due to adviser illness, you will always be notified as soon as possible and an alternative session will be arranged for you.
Longer-term assistance
When longer-term assistance is necessary some of the advisers may be prepared to take on fee-paying assignments for members but this is a matter for the member and the adviser to decide and agree upon directly and shall have no involvement from the IoD.
The IoD does not recommend particular firms or the use of the private services of the advisers in preference to outside consultants, but it has no objection to the use of its advisers by members who prefer continuity.
Conflict of interest
In cases when more than one member seeks advice on the same matter, an adviser may not be able to offer advice, due to potential conflict of interest. From time to time there may be other conflicts of interests which mean that one of our advisers cannot deal with specific queries. If this is the case we will let you know as soon as possible.