Who is entitled to reasonable adjustments?

Some employers will make adjustments for any worker who is facing a barrier to work, regardless of whether that is because they are disabled. This may be adjusting hours to fit around caring responsibilities, or allowing time off to take part in confidence-building activities. But the law only protects individuals who are legally defined as “disabled”, and may therefore have a right to “reasonable adjustments”.

An employer has a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments for an individual who is defined as disabled under the Equality Act 2010 (EA 10) where a “provision, criterion or practice” or a physical feature puts them at a substantial disadvantage compared with someone who is not disabled, or where they require an auxiliary aid. An aid may be a piece of equipment, such as a speaker phone, but also covers services such as the provision of a reader, sign language interpreter or support worker.

The concept of reasonable adjustments under the EA 10 (and its predecessor the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which still applies in Northern Ireland) is based on an individual, medical model of disability. This is in contrast to the social model of disability explained on page 3.

It requires an individual to show that they have a disability as defined in the EA 10, that they are disadvantaged because of it and to ask for adjustments to remove that specific disadvantage. The definition of disability is explained later in this chapter.