Claimant v Stoke on Trent Council — 2020

Donald Briscoe worked as a locum social worker for Stoke-on-Trent Council from 18 July 2018 to 18 April 2019. This was an open preliminary hearing to decide two status issues under the Equality Act 2010: whether he was an employee or a contract worker, and whether he was disabled. The claimant conceded that he was a contract worker and not an employee.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant had dyslexia and that the impairment was long-term. It relied on his own evidence, his further particulars, and an Access to Work assessment dated 24 February 2009. There was no recent medical evidence, but the judge found the claimant honest and straightforward, and accepted his account that his difficulties included reading, writing, organisation, and short-term memory, with coping strategies such as taking notes, using his phone, spell-checking, and re-reading text.

Applying section 6(1) of the Equality Act 2010, section 212(2), Schedule 1 paragraph 5, and the Equality Act Guidance, the tribunal found that retaining oral information from meetings, writing reports, and reading documents at work were normal day-to-day activities. It held that the cumulative effect of the claimant's difficulties was more than minor or trivial, because he took significantly longer to read and write and to correct errors, even though his coping strategies reduced the effect. The tribunal therefore found that he was disabled at material times. It described the decision as finely balanced and noted that any causal link between the impairment and the dismissal, and whether it was sufficiently accommodated, would be matters for the final hearing.