The Equality Act 2010 applies to everyone who accesses, purchases, or uses your goods, facilities, or services. All service providers and those providing goods and facilities in Great Britain are within the scope of the Act. It includes virtually any business, from offices to shops to restaurants, hotels to leisure centres. It applies to all your services, whether a charge is made for them.
The Act protects anyone who accesses your goods, facilities, or services from discrimination based on a ‘protected characteristic’.
What is disability discrimination in the context of those who access a business’ goods, facilities, or services?
The Equality Act 2010 introduced protection from three new forms of disability discrimination:
- direct discrimination because of disability in relation to goods, facilities, and services
- indirect disability discrimination
- discrimination arising from disability
What is a reasonable adjustment?
The duty to make reasonable adjustments is owed to all disabled persons who want to access your services. Therefore, all businesses, whether they already have disabled customers or not, are affected. The duty applies regardless of whether the business is aware that a particular member of the public is disabled.
The legal duty is ‘anticipatory’. This means you cannot wait until a disabled person wants to use your services, but you must think in advance (and on an ongoing basis) about what disabled people with a range of impairments might reasonably need, such as people who have a visual impairment, a hearing impairment, a mobility impairment, or a learning disability.
There are generally three types of reasonable adjustments:
Adjustments to a policy or procedure.
Ensure you monitor your policies and procedures to ensure they are not putting disabled people at a substantial disadvantage in comparison to non-disabled people when accessing goods, facilities and services, and take reasonable steps to ensure that any policies or procedures that do not comply are changed or ended.
Expense alone is not sufficient justification for maintaining a policy that is indirectly discriminatory. However, it can be considered as part of the justification if there are other good reasons.
An example of another, good reason may be that the policy is necessary to safeguard an individual’s health and safety, whether they are disabled or not. However, the service provider must also consider whether there are any reasonable adjustments that could be made to allow the disabled person to use the service.
For example, if a guesthouse has a practice of only serving breakfast between 7.00 and 9.00 am, this disadvantages people like James, whose disability requires him to take medication mid-morning before he eats any food. If it would be reasonable for the owner to alter his practice and provide James with a breakfast later in the morning, but the owner fails to do so, he could be found to have discriminated against James by failing to make a reasonable adjustment.
Adjustments involving the provision of auxiliary aids and services
Try to anticipate what reasonable adjustments you need to make, and auxiliary aids or services you need to make available, to disabled individuals who would otherwise be at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled people.
For example, looking at a business’ website, it may include certain images, animations, and other functionality to showcase their goods or services to the public. By law, businesses must make reasonable adjustments to ensure their website is suitable for all including disabled users. If all information is displayed through images, animation, or multimedia, this may well place those with a visual impairment at a disadvantage and may stop them or make it more difficult for them to access the goods or services, and this may therefore be disability discrimination.
You should think about and discuss with your website designer what could be done to make it easier for those with a visual disability. For example, you could look at providing text or audio descriptions of any graphics or animation.
If a bank makes information about its savings accounts available on audio tape and CD, customers with visual impairments can listen to the same information at home, via the bank website, or in branch. This is a reasonable adjustment using an auxiliary aid.
Adjustments to physical features
Consider making reasonable adjustments to the physical features of your business premises, to better enable disabled people to access your goods, facilities, and services. This can include, for example, reasonable adjustments to:
- stairways and steps
- parking areas
- entrances and exits
- doors and gates
- toilets and washing facilities
- lifts and escalators
Official guidance suggests that the effectiveness of the adjustment, its cost, and the size and resources of the organisation should all be considered in deciding whether an adjustment is reasonable. If the adjustment involves making alterations that are prohibited or restricted by the lease, the Act provides that the lease will have effect as if it permitted the alterations, subject to the landlord’s consent, which cannot be unreasonably withheld.
For example, a restaurant on two floors fits an additional handrail on its stairs so that it is easier for mobility-impaired customers to use the upper floor. This is a reasonable adjustment to physical features
What is a reasonable adjustment to my premises?
Where a physical feature of your premises makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled persons to make use of those services, it is your duty to take such steps as are reasonable in all the circumstances to:
- remove that feature
- alter it so that it no longer has that effect
- provide a reasonable means of avoiding the feature
This is the reasonable adjustment requirement. Every situation is unique and therefore requires it to be assessed against its specific circumstances, and reasonable adjustment applied or clear justification as to why it cannot be applied recorded. The Act requires you to make reasonable adjustments and the key word here is ‘reasonable’. What is reasonable must be put into context. For example, a small convenience shop staffed by the owner on a tight budget would not be able to finance the same level of structural alteration that a national chain of high street stores would be able to afford. In these circumstances, it would not be reasonable to expect the same level of change.
Many adjustments will not be particularly expensive and require no more than what is’ reasonable’. As well as the size and nature of your organisation, the nature of the goods, facilities, or services you provide may be relevant.
No business will be expected to make large-scale changes that are totally impractical or lead to their financial ruin. If, however, a disabled person can show that there were barriers you should have identified and reasonable adjustments you could have made, they can bring a claim against you in the Civil Courts, and you may be ordered to pay them compensation and compel you to make the reasonable adjustments.
There are many examples of adjustments that might require consideration:
- Is it practical to install either a temporary or permanent ramp to provide easier access for wheelchair users?
- Is it possible to widen doorways to accommodate wheelchairs or provide a low-level doorbell so that trained staff can go to assist?
- Would a lift or escalator provide better access to different levels for the physically infirm or can you provide trained staff to assist if installing a lift would not be practical?
- Does shelving require re-adjustment for easier access or can trained staff help customers?
- Would different lighting make it easier for partially sighted customers?
- Would large print or Braille on signs or literature assist the partially sighted?
