Mr A Korniak v National Association of Citizens Advice — 2019

Mr A Korniak brought disability discrimination claims against the National Association of Citizens Advice arising from his application for the role of Head of Technology Planning and Delivery in November 2019. The claimant had dyslexia, which the respondent accepted amounted to a disability. The tribunal found that the claimant had seen material about the Guaranteed Interview Scheme, alternative formats and the recruitment guidance, but he did not tell the respondent that he had dyslexia or explain how the application format affected him. It found that the initial shortlisting was carried out by Jason Kay on the basis of CVs alone, contrary to the respondent's guidance, and that he did not know the claimant was disabled at that stage.

The direct discrimination claim failed because the tribunal found the respondent had neither actual nor constructive knowledge of the claimant's dyslexia when the relevant decisions were made. It therefore held that neither Mr Kay nor Rosalind Fane could have been motivated by the disability. The tribunal also said that, had it needed to decide the alleged detriments, it would not have found the shortlisting score to be a detriment because the claimant was initially rejected on his CV before any scoring exercise, and it would not have found the later interview offer to have a predetermined outcome. It found that the interview invitation was genuinely made and that both managers intended the claimant to have the opportunity to demonstrate his suitability at interview.

The reasonable adjustments claim failed because the tribunal found the respondent did not know, and could not reasonably have been expected to know, that the claimant was likely to be placed at a substantial disadvantage by the application format. It accepted that the word limit caused difficulty for the claimant, but found he was able to overcome the other aspects of the format and that his poor scores resulted in part from not following the guidance to give one structured example and to use STAR structure. The tribunal also held that, even if constructive knowledge had been established, it was not shown that removing the word limit, placing questions on the same page, or allowing audio submissions would probably have prevented the disadvantage alleged.

The victimisation claim failed because the tribunal found the later interview offer was not made because of the claimant's protected act on 21 November 2019. Although Ms Fane's email explanation was described as elliptical and misleading, the tribunal found the offer itself was genuine and not an attempt to avoid litigation. No candidate was appointed to the role. The tribunal noted process failures in the respondent's recruitment exercise, including the lack of training on the recruitment policy and Guaranteed Interview Scheme and the absence of contemporaneous scoring records, but said these errors did not amount to discrimination on the facts it had found.