An employment tribunal has found that an employer did not commit discrimination arising from disability and met its duty to make reasonable adjustments when it withdrew a conditional job offer after health and safety concerns over a job applicant's epilepsy.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that there is nothing in agency workers laws to prevent employers from choosing permanent members of staff over agency workers for job vacancies.
This case serves as a reminder of the importance of having a recruitment policy and procedure in place that is not discriminatory and properly implemented and followed and of recording each stage of the recruitment process.
It is perfectly possible for there to be very little direct evidence of discrimination in a recruitment process, but for an employee to win a tribunal claim because the employer's failure to keep a clear record leads to inconsistencies in its defence, as this disability discrimination case shows.
Employers that operate a transparent and carefully recorded recruitment process have little to fear if they find themselves in an employment tribunal, as this race discrimination case shows.
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