Who hears the appeal?

The Acas Code requires the appeal to be dealt with impartially by a manager who has not had prior involvement with the case at all. The Guidance says that wherever possible, the manager hearing the appeal should be senior to the one who made the decision under appeal.

If the manager hearing the appeal confers with the manager who made the dismissal decision, this can make the dismissal unfair (Campion v Hamworthy Engineering [1987] ICR 966).

Points to check include:

• has the employee received all the necessary information about how the appeal is to operate, in good time;

• have draft minutes from the original hearing been produced for comment in good time before the appeal hearing to enable the member to prepare properly;

• what information do the appeal panel need and what documents or evidence have they been given on which to base their decision?

The date of dismissal is not changed by lodging an appeal. The fact that an employee is appealing against a dismissal does not affect the date of termination of the employment, which remains the original date of dismissal.

Any tribunal claim must be issued within three months of the dismissal date, even if the appeal process is still on-going. If the deadline for bringing an unfair dismissal claim is missed for this reason, the claim is unlikely to be allowed (Remploy Limited v Brain UKEAT/0465/10).