Talem Law

Talem Law Talem Law is a specialist law firm in the areas of Employment Law and Special Educational Needs (SEN

Happy Birthday to our co-founder, Mandy Aulak!We hope you have a wonderful day celebrating and wish you every success, h...
19/06/2026

Happy Birthday to our co-founder, Mandy Aulak!

We hope you have a wonderful day celebrating and wish you every success, happiness and exciting adventures in the year ahead.

One thing that still surprises us, and if we are honest, slightly horrifies us, is how often we hear of disabled employe...
16/06/2026

One thing that still surprises us, and if we are honest, slightly horrifies us, is how often we hear of disabled employees being asked to pay for their own reasonable adjustments. It may be equipment or other support that has been identified as necessary and reasonable to help them carry out their role.

What is particularly interesting is that the Equality Act 2010 contains a specific provision dealing with this issue.

Section 20(7) provides:

“A person (A) who is subject to a duty to make reasonable adjustments is not …entitled to require a disabled person… to pay to any extent A’s costs of complying with the duty.”

There was no equivalent provision in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

Parliament therefore chose to address this issue expressly when introducing the Equality Act 2010.

Despite this, we still encounter situations where disabled employees are being asked to contribute towards, or fund entirely, adjustments that have already been identified as necessary and reasonable.

The statutory position is clear. An employer subject to the reasonable adjustments duty is not entitled to require the disabled employee to bear the costs of complying with that duty.

“R” is for Reasonable.One of the most common misunderstandings about the reasonable adjustments duty is the assumption t...
15/06/2026

“R” is for Reasonable.

One of the most common misunderstandings about the reasonable adjustments duty is the assumption that, once triggered, every adjustment requested by an employee must be implemented.

That is not the legal test.

The key question is whether the adjustment sought is reasonable in the circumstances. Factors that may be relevant include effectiveness, practicability, cost, resources and the impact on the organisation.

The example in the graphic is based on Dyer v London Ambulance NHS Trust (UKEAT/0500/13). In that case, the EAT upheld a tribunal’s finding that the adjustment requested was not reasonable, having regard to the nature of the workplace, the practicalities of implementation and the fact that the risk of exposure could not be eliminated entirely.

As with all reasonable adjustment cases, the outcome turned on the particular facts.

This post forms part of our A–Z series on disability in the workplace.

Helpful and appropriate are not always the same thing.In our last post, we discussed section 60 of the Equality Act 2010...
05/06/2026

Helpful and appropriate are not always the same thing.

In our last post, we discussed section 60 of the Equality Act 2010 and the restrictions it places on certain health questions during recruitment.

Historically, there was concern that some disabled applicants were being deterred from applying for jobs because of pre-employment health questions. Section 60 was introduced against that background.

The legislation does not prevent all discussions relating to health or disability during recruitment. There are recognised exceptions and there will be circumstances, or stages within the recruitment process, where information can properly be sought.

However, we increasingly see disclosure initiatives designed to support disabled applicants which encourage the sharing of significant amounts of disability or health information at a very early stage of the recruitment process, regardless of whether that information is needed at that stage.

In most cases, these initiatives appear to be created with the best of intentions. The difficulty is that good intentions do not replace an understanding of the legal framework and why it exists.

Information that may become relevant once somebody is employed is not necessarily information that needs to be gathered or disclosed during recruitment. Recruitment and employment are different stages of the relationship and the legal framework recognises that distinction.

For us, the question is not whether disclosure initiatives are well intentioned. The more important question is whether they are encouraging the right information to be shared, at the right time and for the right reason.

As with many areas of workplace disability decision-making, understanding why the legal framework exists is often just as important as understanding what it says.

Section 60 of the Equality Act 2010 was introduced against a background of significant concern about disability discrimi...
01/06/2026

Section 60 of the Equality Act 2010 was introduced against a background of significant concern about disability discrimination in recruitment, particularly in relation to mental health.

Historically, there was concern that some disabled applicants were being deterred from even applying for jobs because of pre-employment health questions.

The legislation was designed to address this by:
• restricting employers from asking health questions before certain stages of recruitment, other than for limited statutory reasons; and
• shifting the burden of proof automatically to the employer where a job applicant who had been asked a prohibited health question brings a direct disability discrimination claim.

Even now, this remains a surprisingly confused area in practice.

Some applicants are unaware that certain questions about health or sickness absence should not ordinarily be asked at particular stages of recruitment.

Some employers and recruiters have a vague awareness of the rules, but misunderstand:
• when questions can lawfully be asked
• what the statutory exceptions actually mean
• and how recruitment decisions should be handled once information has been obtained.

Timing matters.

The issue is not always simply the question itself. Risk can also arise from assumptions made once health information becomes known and how that information is then used within recruitment decision-making.

Reasonable adjustments are not “off the shelf”.One of the difficulties we increasingly see in workplace disability discu...
21/05/2026

Reasonable adjustments are not “off the shelf”.

One of the difficulties we increasingly see in workplace disability discussions is the assumption that certain conditions automatically come with a particular set of adjustments.

They do not.

A diagnosis does not automatically answer:
• whether a person is disabled for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010
• whether they are placed at a substantial disadvantage
• what adjustment may be reasonable
• whether an adjustment remains appropriate in a different role or environment.

Reasonable adjustments are highly context specific.

An adjustment which may have been effective and reasonable in one role, team or workplace may need to be revisited entirely following a change in role, duties, working patterns, management structure or physical environment.

This is one of the reasons workplace disability decision-making can become risky when assumptions replace analysis.

Not every person with the same condition will experience the same disadvantage.

Not every person will require the same adjustments.

Adjustments should not simply follow an employee from role to role without further consideration.

The legal framework focuses on substantial disadvantage, knowledge, context and reasonableness, not fixed outcomes attached to diagnostic labels.

For many years, at Talem Law, we were cautious about organisations creating too many standalone policies and procedures....
19/05/2026

For many years, at Talem Law, we were cautious about organisations creating too many standalone policies and procedures.

To a certain extent, we still are.

Policies can become meaningless if organisations create them simply for the sake of having a policy, without considering whether it is genuinely required and then embedding it appropriately into practice.

However, one area where our thinking has evolved over the years is reasonable adjustments.

There was a time when we would probably have expected disability issues and reasonable adjustments to sit within broader equality policies and procedures.

We no longer think that is enough.

That change in our thinking has come from years of advising on workplace disability issues and seeing just how often reasonable adjustments become one of the most difficult and heavily litigated areas in practice.

Part of the reason, in our view, is that reasonable adjustments require employers “to do” something. This is in stark contrast to many other protected characteristics, where the focus is often on “not doing” - in other words, avoiding certain behaviour.

When an employer has “to do” something, the process can quickly become overwhelming if there is little understanding of the legal framework, what triggers the reasonable adjustments duty, the purpose of adjustments, or the factors that go towards assessing reasonableness.

When that happens, decisions can become inconsistent, steps may be missed, action delayed, and the disabled person may remain disadvantaged.

This is where a reasonable adjustments policy can help provide structure for managers navigating these issues. A policy does not provide all the answers, but it can go quite some way in furthering understanding for both employers and employees.

That is one of the reasons why we now think many organisations would benefit from having a dedicated reasonable adjustments policy and structured procedures around workplace disability decision-making because, in practice, lack of structure often increases risk to organisations.

Many organisations have equality policies.Far fewer have structured policies and procedures specifically dealing with wo...
18/05/2026

Many organisations have equality policies.

Far fewer have structured policies and procedures specifically dealing with workplace decision-making concerning disability and reasonable adjustments.

In practice, we often see disability issues managed through informal conversations, inconsistent manager responses, delayed action, uncertainty around what information is needed, and concerns about whether adjustments are “fair” to others.

Over time, organisations can find themselves making inconsistent decisions without any real structure underpinning the process.

Decision-making concerning disability in the workplace is not always straightforward. It requires employers to understand the legal framework, identify where substantial disadvantage may arise, and consider adjustments in a structured and consistent way.

This is one of the reasons we developed the Talem Toolkit, which includes the Talem Template, to help organisations approach reasonable adjustments and workplace disability decision-making in a more structured way.

Structure does not remove risk.

However, where there is no structure, risk often increases.

The Equality Act 2010 applies in schools as well as in employment. However, the duty to make reasonable adjustments oper...
14/05/2026

The Equality Act 2010 applies in schools as well as in employment. However, the duty to make reasonable adjustments operates differently in schools in that it is an anticipatory duty.

That means schools are expected to think ahead.

In practice, this often involves accessibility planning across different areas of school life including curriculum delivery, assessment, policies and practices and so on.

It is a more proactive and systemic duty than many people realise and is designed to consider not only current disabled pupils, but future disabled pupils too.

This is one reason why schools often work with accessibility or inclusion plans as part of their wider approach to reasonable adjustments.

The position in employment is different. In the workplace, the duty to make reasonable adjustments is not anticipatory.

We increasingly see SEND language and concepts being imported into workplace discussions around disability.In our view, ...
12/05/2026

We increasingly see SEND language and concepts being imported into workplace discussions around disability.

In our view, that is often unhelpful because it can obscure the legal framework which actually applies in employment and create confusion for both employers and employees.

The Equality Act 2010 applies in both education and employment. However, schools also operate an additional and separate framework governing special educational needs under the Children and Families Act 2014 (the “SEND framework”).

The SEND framework is centred around special educational needs, special educational provision, learning, training, and curriculum differentiation within an educational environment.

The workplace operates differently.

In employment, the Equality Act framework in relation to disability is centred around, amongst other things, workplace PCPs, physical features, auxiliary aids, substantial disadvantage, knowledge, and reasonable adjustments.

In broad terms, in employment it is assumed that the employee has the core skills and ability to perform the role. The question is often whether workplace arrangements, processes, physical features, ways of working, or the absence of auxiliary aids place that individual at a substantial disadvantage and, if so, what adjustments may be reasonable to avoid that disadvantage.

This is not about whether support is important. It is about recognising that different legal frameworks operate differently and use different concepts. Once the starting point shifts from disadvantage to “needs”, the legal analysis itself can begin to shift as well.

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