Wade v Sheffield Hallam University

A duty to make reasonable adjustments may be engaged where a disabled employee is substantially disadvantaged by a competitive interview process. The employer is nevertheless not required to dispense with essential job requirements or appoint a person who cannot meet them.

Whether disapplying a competitive process is reasonable depends on the circumstances, including practicability and the nature of the post. An adjustment which would effectively secure appointment despite failure to satisfy most essential criteria is not reasonable under section 4A of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

The claimant, a disabled university employee, was considered for redeployment during restructuring. Her former role had changed. She attended a rearranged interview after an allergic reaction affected the first attempt, but the panel found that she did not meet the essential criteria for the post.

The Employment Tribunal at Sheffield, Employment Judge Little presiding, held that the competitive interview process placed her at a substantial disadvantage and engaged the duty to make reasonable adjustments. It dismissed the claim because mapping her into the role without the process would not have been reasonable. The claimant appealed on the sole issue of whether the respondent should have used a softer assessment process instead of the competitive interview.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Employment Tribunal made no error of law in holding that the statutory duty was engaged but had not been breached.

2. Section 4A of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 requires only such steps as are reasonable in all the circumstances to prevent the substantial disadvantage caused by the relevant provision, criterion or practice. A claimant must identify, at least in broad terms, an apparently reasonable adjustment so that the employer can address whether it can reasonably be achieved.

3. A competitive interview process may in an appropriate case be disapplied as a reasonable adjustment. That possibility does not establish that it must be disapplied in every case. The assessment properly included whether the claimant met the essential requirements of the post, which had evolved from her former role.

4. The claimant's proposed adjustment would have accommodated her failure to meet the essential criteria and was, in substance, a request for appointment despite the panel's genuine conclusion that she was not appointable. She had failed to meet two essential requirements in 2006 and, in 2008, lacked the strategic thinking, vision, creativity and influencing skills required by most of the criteria. The Tribunal was entitled to find that dispensing with the process and essential requirements was not reasonable.

5. The respondent had separately addressed the physical effect of the claimant's disability by rerunning the interview at a different venue and date. No challenge was pursued to those arrangements or to the scoring. The claim therefore failed.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: dismissed the claimant's appeal and upheld the dismissal of the reasonable-adjustments complaint.
• Employment Tribunal, Sheffield: Employment Judge Little, sitting with the Tribunal, sent reasons on 13 December 2011. It found that the duty under section 4A of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was engaged but not breached.