Free tool
Appeal Analyser
A decision has been made. This works out which grounds of appeal are actually open to you, how well evidenced each one is on what you know today, and the order to put them in.
It is built around the questions an experienced representative asks before drafting an appeal, rather than the one most people start with, which is whether you disagree with the outcome. Disagreeing is not a ground. What follows is.
Around twenty minutes. Have the decision letter in front of you, because most of this is answered from it.
Nothing you type here leaves this device. It runs entirely inside your browser. No answers are sent to us, stored on a server, or seen by anyone unless you share the report yourself.
Nothing is saved either. Closing the page clears it.
Nothing to sign up for and no email address required. The full report appears on screen whether or not you contact us.
The decision
Start with the deadline
Take the appeal deadline from the outcome letter and put it in below before anything else. Appeal windows are set by your employer's own policy, not by statute, and they are often five working days. They are missed more often than they are lost on the merits.
If the window is tight, the answer is not to fill this in faster. It is to lodge a short appeal on time, stating that you appeal against the finding and the sanction and that full grounds will follow, and then use this to build them.
The relevant date. Leave blank if you are still employed.
Allegations and findings
Separate the allegation from the finding
These are two different things and appeals are frequently lost by treating them as one. The allegation is what you were accused of. The finding is what the decision maker concluded, and it is the finding you are appealing.
Copy both across from the letters word for word. Where the letter records a finding that is wider than the allegation you were given notice of, or narrower, note it. An employer who finds something you were never charged with has strayed outside paragraph 9 of the ACAS Code 2015, which requires the allegation to be set out in enough detail for you to answer it.
One box per allegation, even where the letter runs them together.
What the decision letter explains
Read the letter for what is absent
This stage is answered entirely from the outcome letter, and it is the most productive twenty minutes available to you. Most decision letters state a conclusion. Rather fewer explain how it was reached.
Read it once for what it says and once for what it does not. A letter that never explains why your account was rejected has not engaged with your defence, and that is a point you can put to an appeal manager in one sentence.
The process that led to it
Have the policy open too
Your employer's disciplinary policy, usually in the staff handbook, matters as much here as the ACAS Code. A departure from the employer's own written procedure is often the easiest ground to make out, because there is no argument about what the standard was. They wrote it.
"Not sure" is a real answer and costs you nothing. It becomes a disclosure request at Stage 9.
New material
New means not before the decision maker
It does not have to be newly created. It only has to be something the person who decided did not have, or had and did not consider. A colleague who was never interviewed is new material. A rota that contradicts the timeline is new material even if it existed all along.
This is the ground with the most direct effect, because it gives the appeal manager something to do other than review a decision a colleague has already made.
What it is, who holds it, and what it shows that the decision maker did not know.
Sanction, consistency and mitigation
Where the statutory test actually sits
Section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 asks whether, in the circumstances, the employer acted reasonably or unreasonably in treating the reason as a sufficient reason for dismissing you, and directs that the question is determined in accordance with equity and the substantial merits of the case. Two things follow that are worth holding on to.
The question is what a reasonable employer could have done, not what you or anyone else would have done. And the size and resources of the employer are part of the picture: paragraph 3 of the ACAS Code 2015 records that what is reasonable depends on all the circumstances and that it may not be practicable for every employer to take every step.
An appeal framed around that question reads differently from one framed around disagreement. You are not asking the appeal manager to prefer your view. You are asking whether this decision was one a reasonable employer could have reached on this material.
Name the similarity and the difference in outcome. You do not need to identify them by name in the appeal. Paragraph 4 of the ACAS Code 2015 requires employers to act consistently.
Health, caring responsibilities, provocation, workload, training never given, length of clean service, an admission made early, a genuine mistake. Note whether the letter engages with any of it.
Grounds analysis
The order to put them in
Before you submit
Appeal structure
Keep this
Nothing has been saved. Print it or copy it into a document of your own before you close the page.
Read next
Two things worth having open while you write. The guide explains how an appeal hearing runs and what the appeal manager is deciding. The service page sets out what is done for you if you would rather not do this part alone, including the fee for your band, published in full.
Where this stops
This is the skeleton, not the appeal. It gives you the headings, the order and the points that belong under each, which is the part most people find hardest. Writing the thing so that it lands on an appeal manager, and putting it in the room, is a different exercise.
A free fifteen minute consultation is available, in confidence and with no obligation. You will be told plainly where you stand, including where the answer is that you can do this yourself. Published fees for every service are set out on the services page and confirmed in writing before any work begins.
This analysis is not legal advice and does not predict an outcome. It records which grounds of appeal are open on the answers you gave and how well evidenced each is today. It does not assess how likely an appeal is to be allowed, and no tool can. The ACAS Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures dated 11 March 2015 is the Code in force; a draft revised Code was published on 30 July 2026 and is not in force. A failure to follow the Code does not of itself make an employer liable, though a tribunal will take it into account and may adjust an award by up to twenty five per cent for an unreasonable failure to comply, in either direction. The statutory test referred to is section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996. Time limits shown are indicative. Confirm any limit before relying on it, and take advice on your own facts.
The analysis in full
What this analyser checks
All 39 checks, in two parts. The first tests what your decision letter explains, because a letter that states an outcome without showing its working is the commonest source of a ground of appeal. The second tests the process that led to it. Grounds of appeal come from these two places far more often than from disputing the facts.
What the decision letter should explain
ACAS Code 2015, paragraphs 18 to 22; Employment Rights Act 1996, section 98(4)
- Does the letter set out findings of fact, rather than only the outcome?
- Does it give reasons for the decision?
- Does it identify the evidence relied on?
- Does it explain why your account was rejected?
- Does it explain why the sanction imposed was considered reasonable?
- Does it record that your mitigation was considered?
- Does it follow your employer’s own written disciplinary procedure?
- Were you told of your right of appeal and how to exercise it?
Investigation
ACAS Code 2015, paragraphs 5 to 7
- Was the investigation carried out by someone independent of the decision?
- Was evidence that helped you sought out as well as evidence against you?
- Were the witnesses you named interviewed?
Disclosure
ACAS Code 2015, paragraphs 9 and 12
- Were you given the written evidence, including witness statements, before the hearing?
- Was any evidence produced at the hearing that you had not seen?
- Did you receive notes or minutes of the hearing?
Notice and preparation
ACAS Code 2015, paragraphs 9 to 11
- Were the allegations set out in enough detail for you to answer them?
- Were you given reasonable time to prepare?
- Were you told that dismissal was a possible outcome?
Representation
ACAS Code 2015, paragraphs 13 to 17; Employment Relations Act 1999, section 10
- Were you told in writing that you could be accompanied?
- Was your chosen companion accepted?
- Was your companion allowed to put your case and confer with you during the hearing?
The hearing
ACAS Code 2015, paragraph 12
- Were you able to state your case without being cut short?
- Were reasonable questions you asked answered rather than refused?
- Did the person hearing it appear to be approaching it with an open mind?
- Was the decision taken by the person who heard your case?
The seven grounds it tests
Grounds of appeal are not a free-form complaint. These are the seven the analyser works through, and the authority each rests on. If you take nothing else from this page, take the list.
Procedural unfairness
ACAS Code 2015, paragraphs 5 to 17; the employer’s own procedure
Findings not supported by the reasoning
ACAS Code 2015, paragraphs 18 and 22
New material
Material not before the decision maker
Sanction unreasonable in the circumstances
Employment Rights Act 1996, section 98(4); ACAS Code 2015, paragraphs 3 and 19 to 24
Inconsistent treatment
ACAS Code 2015, paragraph 4
Equality and adjustments
Equality Act 2010
Mitigation not considered
ACAS Code 2015, paragraphs 19 to 21
What this does not do. It identifies procedural and evidential points you may wish to raise. It does not assess your prospects and it does not tell you whether an appeal will succeed. The judgement about which grounds to run remains yours, and the order you put them in usually matters as much as the grounds themselves. Every reference above is to the ACAS Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures dated 11 March 2015, which is the version in force.