The findings of a new research study were presented by PIRU (the Public Interest Research Unit) at the British Universities Industrial Relations Association conference on Friday 8th July 2011. The research was undertaken by Rupert Harwood, chair of the Public Interest Research Unit.
The general picture revealed by the study is as below:
• There appeared to be a quite strong commitment to disability equality across the interview organisations; and the reasonable adjustments duty (now under the Equality Act 2010) (note 1) appeared to have had a major positive impact on the experience of disabled employees in the work place. Adjustments included, for example, working from home, phased return to work, time off for chemotherapy, redeployment, improved wheel chair access, and modifications to equipment.
• However, in most cases, HR policies and procedures appeared to greatly understate what the reasonable adjustments duty requires. Policies, for example, set out a requirement to ‘consider’ adjustments without indicating that there will also sometimes be a legal requirement to make them.
• Employees often had to fight to get adjustments; while some, including on account of health problems, were unable to.
• Breaching the Disability Equality Duty (now incorporated into the Single Equality Duty) appeared to be standard. In particular, either HR policies were not impact assessed; or (with one or two possible exceptions) the assessments appeared to be a meaningless exercise, in which the ‘assessor’ (for no apparent good reason) just ticked the ‘no negative impact’ (or equivalent) box.
Impact of the cuts
• In some organisations, redundancies appeared to be starting to have a disproportionate impact on those with disabilities and/ or health problems; and, in particular, on those with mental health conditions. It appeared that many disabled employees were going from being the hardest hit in the work place to (with cuts to disability benefits) the hardest hit out of work.
• Few redundancy procedures appeared to have been impact assessed, raising speculative questions about the lawfulness of the redundancy process so far across the entire public sector.
• It appeared that some organisations, in making redundancies, may well have been acting in breach of the reasonable adjustments duty. For example, a disabled council employee, who had severe problems lifting, was only offered redeployment interviews for care assistant posts (for which heavy lifting was an essential requirement). Since he could not get close to doing these jobs, he was made redundant.
• It appeared (again in possible breach of the reasonable adjustments duty) that in some organisations, employees were made redundant because their organisation was unwilling to make reasonable adjustments to posts to which they might otherwise have been redeployed. It appeared, for example, that one interviewee was qualified to do an alternative post but was not able to take it up because the council was not prepared to transfer the reasonable adjustments (including time off for medical treatment) which were in place for her at risk post to this new post.
• Some interviewees indicated that government cuts had lead to fewer adjustments being made, which had, in some instances, resulted in the disabled employee being unable to do their job and thus being dismissed; to delays in adjustments while, according to one interviewee, “everybody and his brother get consulted on where the budget is going to come from”; or to having to fight harder for adjustments which were granted.
• It was suggested in a number of interviews that there were fears, arising from the cuts, around taking sick leave and/ or asking for adjustments. On interviewee, for example, said – “There was a bit of culture of fear … about having time off”. It also seemed possible that, at least in some cases, not taking short term absence (when it was needed) had led to a dramatic deterioration in conditions (including in particular serious mental illnesses) and to a consequent increase in long term absences.
• It seemed possible in at least one council that capability and sickness absence procedures were being used to unlawfully to get rid of employees with disabilities or health problems, without needing to make redundancies. In the words of the interviewee, “they’ve been looking to weed out people that are easy to get out”. An interviewee, from another council, said that employees with mental health problems are “being targeted for absence”.
• It appears possible that under the combined pressure of the cuts, a government nod and a wink towards side-stepping ‘regulations’, and the portrayal of the disabled in the media as fakes and fraudsters (some of which appears to have spilled over into how disabled employees are treated), disability equality practice in the public sector could be starting to slip backwards. If the unthinkable happens, and the Equality Act is savaged as a result of the Red Tape Challenge, it appears that this deterioration in the position of disabled employees could well happen with alarming speed.
Read the full conference paper here: conferencepaperrh
For more information contact Rupert Harwood at: r.b.harwood@greenwich.ac.uk
or see: www.piru.org.uk