The claimant worked for the respondent as an administrative officer. She suffered from an active and severe form of Crohn’s disease and was off work for a number of periods, underwent surgery and was diagnosed with anxiety. 

Due to being absent from work for 80 working days she met with her line manager pursuant to the ‘Inefficiency Sickness Absence Policy’ to see if any inefficiency action would be taken. The decision was taken to issue the claimant with a written warning, despite the fact that there were strong mitigating circumstances not least the serious illness of her father. 

The claimant argued, among other things, that by reason of her disabilities and her personal family circumstances the DSD should have made a reasonable adjustment either not to issue the warning in the first place or to have rescinded the warning. The tribunal held that the claimant was substantially disadvantaged in comparison to a non-disabled person as the respondent ought to have considered whether the trigger to the review sickness absence attendance policy ought to be modified for persons with a disability. It was held that the DSD failed in its duty to make a reasonable adjustment. 

Practical lessons

The respondent had actually made a number of reasonable adjustments for the claimant in the years preceding this matter, and relied on this as evidence to show accommodation for her needs. However that did not alter the fact that on this specific occasion the respondent failed to ‘apply their minds’ to determining the reasonableness of the step. 

The tribunal went through a ‘checklist’ of the issues surrounding the decision not to make a reasonable adjustment but also alluded to the fact that the claimant’s line manager made repeated attempts to have the warning rescinded. There was a failure to properly consider his concerns which suggests there is no exhaustive list against which reasonable adjustment decisions must be made. 

On the facts of this case, the respondent failed to properly consider the views of the manager who best knew the claimant and her condition and his concerns were clearly given weight. In reality a ‘matrix’ of factors was considered by the tribunal instead of a rigid set of indicators.