Claimant v Respondent — 2026

AB remained employed by Sky Subscribers Services Limited as a customer service adviser. The respondent conceded that she was disabled at the relevant time because of anxiety, depression and chronic sinusitis, and that it knew of those disabilities. The claimant did not pursue her unauthorised-deductions complaint; the final hearing determined claims of discrimination arising from disability, indirect disability discrimination and failure to make reasonable adjustments.

For the section 15 claim, the respondent conceded that not paying an incentive during sickness absence was unfavourable treatment and that disability-related absences arose in consequence of the claimant's disabilities. The Tribunal accepted that rewarding measurable sales, retention and customer-stabilisation work was a legitimate aim. It nevertheless found that excluding all disability-related sickness absence from incentive entitlement was not shown to be a proportionate means of achieving that aim. In balancing the respondent's needs against the discriminatory effect, it considered the significant financial effect on the claimant, the scheme's exceptions for specified absences, its smoothing mechanism and the possibility of less discriminatory calculation methods. The section 15 claim therefore succeeded.

For the section 19 claim, the respondent accepted that it applied a provision, criterion or practice under which advisers could not earn incentives while absent through sickness, that this applied to disabled and non-disabled people, and that it particularly disadvantaged disabled people and disadvantaged the claimant. The respondent relied on the same legitimate aims and justification as for section 15. For the same proportionality reasons, the Tribunal found that objective justification had not been established and upheld the indirect discrimination claim.

The Tribunal dismissed the reasonable-adjustments complaint concerning an alleged requirement for a diagnosis before referral to occupational health. It accepted that the claimant had requested a referral before May 2025 and should have been referred sooner, but found that the respondent's policy did not require a diagnosis and that the refusal was a one-off decision by an inexperienced manager rather than a provision, criterion or practice. Following the occupational-health assessment in May 2025, home working, a phased return and break-related adjustments were implemented, although their referral, implementation and recording were delayed.

The Tribunal also rejected the alleged provision, criterion or practice of counting all absences towards warning triggers. The absence-management and workplace-adjustment policies allowed disability-related modifications, and the claimant received no absence warning or other formal absence-management consequence before adjusted triggers were recorded in December 2025. The delayed recording of agreed adjustments meant temporary managers raised questions about her breaks, but the claim as articulated did not establish a breach of section 21.

The Tribunal awarded £1,421.08 for lost incentive payments relating to disability-related absence in May and November 2025, calculated by reference to average incentive pay over the previous 12 months and including the phased-return period. August absences were excluded because there was no medical evidence establishing that they were disability-related. It awarded £5,000 for injury to feelings in the lowest Vento band, based on the effect of the incentive non-payment underlying both successful claims, without double recovery. It made no Acas Code uplift, finding no unreasonable failure to follow the Code, and declined to make a recommendation because it lacked sufficient detail to specify appropriate changes to the incentive scheme. The total award was £6,421.08.