The Home Office (UK Visas & Immigration) v Kuranchie

An employer's duty to make reasonable adjustments requires a holistic assessment of whether reasonable steps have avoided the substantial disadvantage caused by a provision, criterion or practice. Existing adjustments do not answer the issue where they have not removed that disadvantage. A proposed adjustment may be considered although the worker had not previously requested it. The adjustment need only have a real prospect of removing the disadvantage.

In a direct discrimination claim, the statutory two-stage burden-of-proof enquiry remains applicable. Evidence capable of supporting an inference may include a discernible pattern shown by statistics and the possibility of unconscious discrimination. A tribunal errs if it treats such evidence as no evidence capable of satisfying the first stage.

The Employment Tribunal dismissed the claimant's race and sex discrimination complaints but upheld a complaint that the Home Office had failed to make a reasonable adjustment under section 20(3) of the Equality Act 2010. It found that the claimant's disability meant that a requirement to perform the same volume of work as colleagues caused her to work additional hours, and that her workload should have been reduced.

The Home Office appealed that disability finding. The claimant cross-appealed the dismissal of her direct race discrimination complaint concerning the reduction of her annual assessment from the highest to the middle performance category. The central issues were whether the Tribunal had correctly assessed reasonable adjustments and whether it had wrongly concluded that there was no evidence capable of satisfying the first stage of the discrimination burden-of-proof test.

1. The employer's appeal was dismissed. The Tribunal had identified the relevant provision, criterion or practice, the claimant's substantial disadvantage, and the proposed step of reducing her workload. The proper question under section 20(3) of the Equality Act 2010 was whether the employer had taken such reasonable steps as were required to avoid that disadvantage.

2. The assessment must be holistic, consistently with Burke v The College of Law [2012] EWCA Civ 37. However, the compressed-hours arrangement and proposed assistive software had not removed the disadvantage during the relevant period. The Tribunal was therefore entitled to consider whether a reduced workload was a reasonable adjustment, even though it had not previously been proposed. The adjustment had a real prospect of removing the disadvantage, and the employer had not contended that reducing the workload could not reasonably do so.

3. The claimant's cross-appeal was allowed. The Tribunal was entitled to use the two-stage enquiry in Igen Ltd v Wong [2005] ICR 931, rather than treating the general “reason why” question as a complete answer. It erred at stage one by holding that there was no evidence from which discrimination could reasonably be inferred.

4. The evidence included a document recording concern that minority ethnic, disabled and part-time staff were less likely to receive a performance bonus. Tribunals must be alert to unconscious discrimination. Statistical material capable of showing a discernible pattern of treatment may be relevant. Taken holistically, that material was capable of amounting to the further evidential basis required at stage one.

5. The race complaint was remitted to the same Employment Tribunal, if practicable, for reconsideration on the existing evidence and further submissions only. No further evidence was to be adduced.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: The Home Office's appeal was dismissed. The claimant's cross-appeal was allowed, and the race complaint was remitted.
• Employment Tribunal, London (South): By reserved judgment and reasons dated 13 April 2016, the Tribunal upheld the reasonable-adjustment complaint under section 20(3) of the Equality Act 2010 and dismissed the race and sex discrimination complaints.