Ms H Robinson-Smith-Hunte v Department for Work and Pensions — 2022

The Respondent conceded that the Claimant was disabled for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010. The Claimant remained employed and complained that issues with Dragon voice recognition software, DMACR, Citrix and related systems amounted to failures to make reasonable adjustments and discrimination arising from disability. The Tribunal treated the allegations as potentially forming part of a continuing act up to November 2017, so considered them despite time-limit issues.

On reasonable adjustments, the Tribunal found that the Respondent had not made Dragon less functional and had not removed disability compliance by upgrading from version 10 to version 12. It accepted that the Respondent introduced DMACR to the Claimant before all remedial accessibility work had been completed, but found the identified issues were later resolved and that the Claimant had not proved a substantial disadvantage from that PCP. It also found that workarounds and support were provided, including visits to the Claimant's workstation, advice from technical staff, replacement equipment and consideration of other roles.

The Tribunal found that the requested adjustments, including continued use of Dragon version 10, an alternative to Citrix, a 64-bit machine, and a different role avoiding legacy applications, were not reasonable or would not have addressed the alleged disadvantage. On the section 15 complaints, it found that providing Dragon version 12 was not unfavourable treatment, that Ms Reeves did not ignore the Claimant's problems, and that there was no evidence the grievance appeal was dismissed because of something arising from disability. The complaint of disability discrimination was dismissed.