Right to appeal
[ch 5: page 45]Acas recommends using a formal redundancy appeals procedure. Whoever hears the appeal should be senior to the original decision-maker. Not allowing an appeal can make an otherwise fair dismissal unfair (West Midlands Cooperative Society v Tipton [1986] ICR 192), because it denies the employee a chance to change the outcome (London Central Bus Company v Manning [2013] UKEAT/0103/13).
Wherever possible, appeals should be heard by someone not involved in the redundancy selection. In Romium v McMillan EATS/00007/03, the EAT held that a procedure allowing the person who carried out the assessment also to carry out the appeal was fundamentally flawed and the dismissal unfair. In a very small business where nobody else is available, arranging for an appeal to be heard by the same person who made the selection for redundancy is unlikely to make the dismissal unfair, so long as there is no other practical option. There is no obligation to approach an external party to hear the appeal (Charles Scott Consulting Engineers Limited v Hamilton UKEATS/0072/10/B1).