Disability rights
Employment
It’s against the law for employers to discriminate against you because of a disability. The Equality Act 2010 protects you and covers areas including:
- application forms
- interview arrangements
- aptitude or proficiency tests
- job offers
- terms of employment, including pay
- promotion, transfer and training opportunities
- dismissal or redundancy
- discipline and grievances
Reasonable adjustments in the workplace
An employer has to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to avoid you being put at a disadvantage compared to non-disabled people in the workplace. For example, adjusting your working hours or providing you with a special piece of equipment to help you do the job.
Recruitment
An employer who’s recruiting staff may make limited enquiries about your health or disability.
You can only be asked about your health or disability:
- to help decide if you can carry out a task that is an essential part of the work
- to help find out if you can take part in an interview
- to help decide if the interviewers need to make reasonable adjustments for you in a selection process
- to help monitoring
- if they want to increase the number of disabled people they employ
- if they need to know for the purposes of national security checks
You may be asked whether you have a health condition or disability on an application form or in an interview. You need to think about whether the question is one that is allowed to be asked at that stage of recruitment.
Redundancy and retirement
You can’t be chosen for redundancy just because you’re disabled. The selection process for redundancy must be fair and balanced for all employees.
Your employer cannot force you to retire if you become disabled.