Only “reasonable” adjustments are required

There is no requirement to make an adjustment that is not “reasonable”. Nor does the duty to make reasonable adjustments extend to requiring employers to help an employee to access ill-health retirement as an alternative to dismissal (Mylott v Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust [2010] UKEAT/0399/10/DM). Neither is an employer expected to make adjustments that would not help alleviate the substantial disadvantage. Reasonable adjustments are “primarily concerned with enabling the disabled person to remain or return to work” (Salford NHS Primary Care Trust v Smith [2011] UKEAT/0507/10). In Salford, a career break and some rehabilitative light duties (non-productive work over a few hours a day) proposed by the GP for a disabled worker with chronic fatigue syndrome were not reasonable adjustments.

However, if an adjustment is reasonable, an employer must make it. What is reasonable depends on all the circumstances of the situation.

Employers are allowed to take into account factors such as:

• whether the proposal will be effective to alleviate or remove the disadvantage;

• the impact on the health and safety of others, and whether this can be managed;

• how practical it is;

• financial costs and disruption;

• the employer’s financial and other resources and the availability of outside support, for example Access to Work (see below);

• the type and size of the employer.

In Cordell v The Foreign and Commonwealth Office ([2011] UKEAT/0016/11/SM), the Foreign Office was allowed to refuse the posting of a deaf high level diplomat to Kazakhstan when the cost of lip-readers was estimated at £230,000 a year. Relevant factors in determining reasonableness in this case included the size of the allocated budget, what the employer had spent in comparable situations, what other similarly resourced employers have spent and relevant collective agreements.

An employer cannot pass on the cost of making adjustments to the employee, in the absence of an express agreement allowing this.

Assistance with cost may be available through the Access to Work scheme. Details are available at: www.gov.uk/access-to-work/overview