Home Office v Collins

An employer’s duty to make reasonable adjustments must be assessed by reference to all the circumstances, including the employee’s medical position, employment history and prognosis. Where a disabled employee remains medically unfit for any work, an employer need not offer a phased or part-time return that could not prevent the relevant disadvantage. A long absence, following poor attendance during an extended probationary period, may provide both a material and substantial justification for dismissal and a sufficient basis for finding that reasonable steps have been taken. Clear and evidence-based findings are not invalidated by imprecise or erroneous ancillary wording.

The Home Office appealed against an Employment Appeal Tribunal decision which had allowed Miss Elaine Collins’s appeal from an employment tribunal. The employment tribunal had dismissed her complaints of disability discrimination under sections 5 and 6 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and unfair dismissal. The EAT held that the tribunal had misdirected itself on reasonable adjustments and justification, and that the dismissal was procedurally unfair.

The central issues were whether the Home Office had failed to take reasonable steps by not offering a phased or part-time return while Collins remained absent through anxiety and depression, and whether the employment tribunal was entitled to find the dismissal fair.

1. Appeal allowed. The employment tribunal’s decision was reinstated.
2. The essential finding was that Collins had been medically certified as unfit to return to work in any capacity. The proposed adjustment was a phased return to part-time work. Even assuming that such an arrangement fell within section 6 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, it could not prevent the relevant disadvantage while she remained unfit for work. Section 6 therefore did not require the Home Office to delay its decision further or to consider part-time work immediately.
3. The tribunal was entitled to find that the Home Office had taken all reasonable steps in the circumstances. Relevant factors included the extended probationary period, the poor attendance record, the prolonged absence, the medical reports, the absence of a definite return date and the opportunity for further representations. Those findings also established justification under section 5(1)(b) and section 5(3). The court applied the approach in Post Office v Jones [2001] ICR 805.
4. The dismissal was for capability and was procedurally fair. Collins had been monitored, interviewed, given a minded-to-dismiss letter, offered a further medical assessment and given an opportunity to make further enquiries. A further interview was not invariably required. The court relied on East Lindsey Council v Daubney [1977] ICR 566 concerning prolonged absence and a clear medical position.
5. The employment tribunal had used inaccurate statutory terminology, including inappropriate comparisons and an erroneous suggestion that Collins might have been treated more favourably. Those errors did not invalidate its clear and evidence-based findings. The EAT should have applied those findings to the statutory framework rather than substituting its own assessment.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — appeal allowed; the employment tribunal’s decision was reinstated.
• Employment Appeal Tribunal — Collins’s appeal allowed and the case remitted to a differently constituted employment tribunal to consider remedies.
• Employment tribunal — complaints of disability discrimination and unfair dismissal dismissed.