Disability discrimination

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office did not breach its duty to make reasonable adjustments for a deaf senior diplomat when it withdrew an offer to post her to Kazakhstan because of the extremely high costs of making such adjustments.

Must there be a good or real prospect of an adjustment removing a disabled employee’s disadvantage for it to be considered as ‘reasonable’? Not necessarily says the EAT. If there’s a ‘real prospect’ that’ll be enough to make the adjustment a reasonable one - but an adjustment may be reasonable even if there’s a lower chance.

A useful reminder from the EAT that the reasonable adjustment duty is limited to substantive adjustments rather than procedural steps such as consultations and trial periods as these don't, in themselves, alleviate the disadvantage that a provision criterion or practice causes a disabled employee.

Reasonable adjustments involve steps to enable an employee to stay in employment, not to compensate him for leaving it. Offering ill-health retirement did not therefore fall within the scope of ‘reasonable adjustments’.

An employer’s failure to extend the time that sick pay was paid to a disabled employee under its sickness absence policy was not a failure to make a reasonable adjustment.

An unpaid volunteer is not protected under disability discrimination law. She did not fall within the definition of ‘employee’ or ‘worker’ in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Nor was she protected by the Equal Treatment Directive.