Weekly Issue 449

Disability awareness

Acas last week launched a guide to help employers identify, tackle and prevent disability discrimination in the workplace.
The new publication “Disability discrimination: key points for the workplace” - launched to coincide with the International Day of Disabled People - aims to help employers and managers get to grips with what disability means, how it can happen and how to prevent and manage complaints in the workplace.

Tending to show

When blowing the whistle, claimants have to have a “reasonable belief” that “tends to show” (in this case) a breach of a legal obligation. In Soh v Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that workers do not have to show that they believe that X or Y is true, just that they reasonably believe that the information they disclosed tends to show that X or Y is true.

Detriment and discrimination

There are two elements of discrimination set out in the Equality Act - treating an employee less favourably on the ground of a protected characteristic and subjecting them to a detriment. In Cordant Security Ltd v Singh and anor, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that if the employee has not suffered a detriment then the employer could not be found to have discriminated against them.