Page "United Kingdom labour law" Paragraph 121

According to Chacón Navas v Eurest Colectividades SA disabilities involve an impairment " which hinders the participation of the person concerned in professional life ".

Because treating disabled people equally based on ability to perform tasks could easily result in persistence of exclusion from the workforce, employers are bound to do as much as reasonably possible to ensure participation is not hindered in practice.

Under the Equality Act 2010 sections 20 to 22, employers have to make " reasonable adjustments ", for example in changing a workplace practice if it would create a disadvantage, changing physical features of a workplace, or providing auxiliary aids to work.

More detailed examples are found in Schedule 8, and provided in guidance by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

In the leading case, Archibald v Fife Council, it was held that the council had a duty to exempt a lady from competitive interviews for a new job.

Mrs Archibald, previously a road sweeper, had lost the ability to walk after complications in surgery.

Despite over 100 applications for grades just above a manual worker, in her submission, the employers were not looking past her history as a sweeper.

The House of Lords held it could be appropriate, before such an ordeal, for a worker to fill an existing vacancy without a standard interview procedure.

By contrast, in O ’ Hanlon v Revenue and Customs Commissioners the Court of Appeal rejected that it would be a reasonable adjustment, as Ms O ' Hanlon was requesting after falling into clinical depression, for an employer to increase sick pay to full pay, after the expiry of a six month period that applied to everyone else.

A reasonable adjustment should not be a disproportionate burden, with regard to an employer's resources, and fairness among staff ...