Patrick Asiimwe v The London Borough of Lambeth

In a services or public-functions case under Schedule 2 to the Equality Act 2010, the reasonable-adjustments duty is anticipatory and operates at a systemic level. The court must identify the relevant class of disabled persons, determine whether the PCP places that class at a substantial disadvantage, and assess whether the defendant has taken the reasonable steps required to avoid that disadvantage.

An individual failure to implement an otherwise adequate adjustment does not itself establish a breach. However, individual failings may be evidence that the defendant’s systems were not reasonably effective. Once the claimant identifies a potential reasonable adjustment, the defendant bears the burden of showing that the adjustment was unreasonable or that it was made.

The appellant, a disabled homeless person, challenged the dismissal of his claim that the respondent local authority had breached the duty to make reasonable adjustments in administering homelessness accommodation.

The respondent accepted that its practice of placing many applicants in out-of-borough temporary accommodation was a PCP and that disabled persons requiring carers were placed at a substantial disadvantage. The County Court held that the authority’s housing policy, transfer arrangements and review mechanisms were reasonable, although they had failed in the appellant’s individual case. The appeal concerned whether that approach was legally correct and whether the judge had properly applied the burden of proof.

1. Ground One dismissed. Under section 20(3) of the Equality Act 2010, read with Schedule 2, the relevant questions are assessed by reference to the disadvantaged class of disabled persons. The duty is to take such systemic steps as are reasonable to avoid the disadvantage caused by the PCP. Section 21(2) gives an individual within the relevant class a cause of action where that systemic duty has been breached in relation to them. It does not create a separate cause of action merely because an adjustment that has been adequately made at systemic level was not implemented in an individual case.
2. The authorities, including Roads v Central Trains Limited [2004] EWCA Civ 1541, Finnigan v Chief Constable of Northumbria Police [2013] EWCA Civ 1191, MM v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2013] EWCA Civ 1565 and R (Rowley) v Minister for the Cabinet Office [2021] EWHC 2108 (Admin), supported the distinction between the anticipatory, class-based duty and its application to an individual claimant. A claimant need not prove that other disabled persons have also suffered discrimination.
3. Ground Two allowed. The first and second adjustments required the authority to take reasonable steps to place disabled persons with carers in suitable locations and, where they were placed out of borough, to move them when appropriate. Individual failings may be evidence of a broader failure to take reasonable steps. The judge had wrongly treated the appellant’s failure to receive a timely suitability review and transfer as irrelevant to the systemic inquiry, without examining why the failures occurred or what they indicated about the practical effectiveness of the authority’s systems.
4. Section 136 of the Equality Act 2010 placed the burden on the authority to show that the identified adjustments were unreasonable or had been made. The authority had not explained how its systems operated in practice or why the appellant’s case had failed.
5. The appeal was allowed on Ground Two. The County Court’s order dismissing the claim was quashed. The question whether the authority had taken the reasonable steps required to avoid the identified disadvantage was remitted to the trial judge for redetermination on the existing evidence, with the findings on the PCP and substantial disadvantage standing.

• High Court (King’s Bench Division): appeal from the County Court at Central London allowed on Ground Two, dismissed on Ground One; the order dismissing the claim was quashed and the reasonable-steps issue was remitted for redetermination.
• County Court at Central London: HHJ Bloom dismissed the claim after trial on 17 April 2025.