Equality Act 2010
Legal duty to provide ‘Reasonable Adjustments’
Anyone providing goods, facilities or services to the public or a section of the public, or carrying out public functions, who find that there are barriers to people with disabilities in the way they do things must consider making adjustments. If those adjustments are reasonable, they must be made.
The duty is ‘anticipatory’. This means a ‘Service Providers’ cannot wait until a person with a disability wants to use the service. They must think in advance (and on an ongoing basis) about what people with a range of impairments (such as people who have a visual or hearing impairment, mental health disabilities, mobility or physical disabilities or impairment or learning disability) might reasonably need.
A ‘Service Provider’ refers to all legal business, organisation and/or persons with responsibilities under these parts of the Act. The duty to make reasonable adjustments requires ‘Service Providers’ to take positive steps to ensure that disabled people can access and communicate with ‘Service Providers’ in utilising their services. This goes beyond simply avoiding discrimination. It requires ‘Service Providers’ to anticipate the needs of potential disabled customers for reasonable adjustments.
The Equality Act 2010 requires ‘Service Providers’ to provide ‘Reasonable Adjustments’ for people who are “disabled”. Under the Act this means they have a “physical or mental disability / impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day to day activities”.
The duty is to make “reasonable adjustments” for ‘disabled’ people, if the way that ‘Service Providers’ carries out their communications, interactions and functions, subsequently places a disabled person at a “substantial disadvantage” compared to someone who does not have a disability.
All ‘Service Providers’ must do their best accommodate requests for ‘Reasonable Adjustments’ regardless of the size of the business or organisation, even if the person requesting ‘Reasonable Adjustments’ does not have a disability as defined by the Equality Act 2010.
Please see the Equality and Human Rights Commission video on ‘Reasonable Adjustments’ below: