Law Queries
Redundancy and disability
Q. I have a disability — chronic back pain — for which I have to
take regular days off for physiotherapy. My employer is carrying out a redundancy
exercise and I am worried about the impact of all these days off. Is my employer allowed
to take into account disability-related absence when measuring attendance in the context
of redundancy scoring?
A. No. Your employer should not take into account disability-related absence when measuring your attendance for the purposes of redundancy scoring.
Adjusting scores to eliminate disability-related absence is a well-recognised reasonable adjustment which your employer should make in order to avoid infringing the Equality Act 2010.
Guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission explains what is best practice here.