Dr Alaa Jalaal v Grampian Health Board & Ors

For the fairness assessment under section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the relevant knowledge and belief will ordinarily be that of the person authorised to dismiss. The exception in Jhuti is narrow. It may require attribution where a manager within the employer’s hierarchy has concealed the real reason for dismissal behind an invented reason, or has relevant responsibility for the disciplinary inquiry.

The exception does not apply where there is no manipulation, concealed reason, or evidence that the employer was influenced by the separate body responsible for training. A dismissal for loss of a required training number may therefore be fair as a dismissal for some other substantial reason.

The claimant was a paediatric trainee employed by Grampian Health Board. Continued participation in an approved postgraduate training programme, including retention of a national training number, was a contractual condition of her employment. Following an Outcome 4 decision and an unsuccessful appeal within the training process, NHS Education Scotland removed her training number. No suitable redeployment was found and Grampian Health Board dismissed her.

An Employment Tribunal unanimously dismissed claims including unfair dismissal. The claimant appealed on two permitted grounds. The central issue was whether the Tribunal should have attributed to the employer the conduct or state of mind of the separate training body under the approach in Jhuti and Uddin.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Employment Tribunal made no error of law in holding that the dismissal was fair. Its conclusion was permissibly open to it on its unchallenged findings of fact.
2. The ordinary rule, derived from Orr, is that fairness under section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 is assessed by reference to the facts and beliefs known to the person or persons who made the dismissal decision. The EAT accepted that this remained the governing rule.
3. Royal Mail Group Ltd v Jhuti [2019] UKSC 55 creates only a narrow exception. Attribution may be required where a manager responsible for the disciplinary inquiry has relevant knowledge not shared with the dismissing officer, or where a manager higher in the employer’s hierarchy conceals the real reason for dismissal behind an invented reason adopted by the decision-maker.
4. Those conditions were absent. The Tribunal had expressly and unchallengedly found that there had been no manipulation and no hidden reason for dismissal. The training body, the employer and the other respondent were separate entities. There was no basis for treating the training body’s acts as those of the employer, or for extending the Jhuti exception to that arrangement.
5. The employer dismissed because the claimant had lost the training number required to continue in the training programme. That was a potentially fair dismissal for some other substantial reason under section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The EAT upheld the Tribunal’s conclusion that Jhuti and Uddin did not apply.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: Dismissed the claimant’s appeal in [2024] EAT 97.
• Employment Tribunal: Unanimously dismissed the claimant’s discrimination and unfair-dismissal claims. The lower-court citation was not stated in the judgment.