Full Disclosure I know many of the people involved in the issues described below and now and then have been privately helping JC formulate her arguments.
World Scoop
Today I spent some time in an impressive frontier territory, full of exotic geological formations and mysterious goings-on.
Namely an Employment Tribunal hearing in central
What’s the story? Basically, this.
The officer concerned (JC) is profoundly deaf. For those readers who are unfamiliar with disability issues, deafness brings many specific challenges – and expenses – for employers, since it often is not easy for deaf people to function credibly at a senior professional level without professional ‘lip-speakers’ helping out. Lip-speakers are in effect a sort of skilled interpreter, who use sign language to help the deaf colleague grasp fully what is being said eg in meetings and in telephone conversations.
JC flourished under New Labour’s energetic focus on ‘diversity’ of all shapes and sizes, including a sustained attempt to give disabled people a better deal at work. She joined the FCO as a First Secretary and held down some serious jobs in
This first posting was a test for the FCO, albeit at a time when money for this sort of initiative was readily available – Nu Labour Diversity Rules!
JC arrived at post with a complicated arrangement for her British lip-speakers to rotate to and from post to support her. She developed her professional skills strongly in this job, and became the British Government’s most prominent diplomatic symbol of sophisticated diversity/disability policies anywhere in the world, including working with top
Then … trouble.
JC bid for a further overseas posting, this time as a junior Deputy Head of
They then soon wrote her a further letter which came as a bolt from the blue, saying that this posting would have to be looked at in the context of the FCO’s latest ‘Reasonable Adjustments’ policy.
Huh? What’s that?
Under the relevant legislation (especially the Disability Discrimination Act) employers have to make reasonable adjustments to help people with disability work to a satisfactory standard:
Issues for you both to consider include:
· how effective will an adjustment be?
· will it mean that your disability is slightly less of a disadvantage or will it significantly reduce the disadvantage?
· is it practical?
· will it cause much disruption?
· will it help other people in the workplace?
· is it affordable?
Cut away the diversity theology. It all boils down to cost.
In JC’s case, the costs to the FCO/taxpayer of helping JC were considerable – well over £100,000 per year on her first successful European posting, and likely to be notably more in this new one (salaries/insurance/accommodation/travel and other costs for security-cleared lip-speakers all add up impressively over a year).
The FCO HR team this time concluded that these costs far exceeded JC’s annual salary; they had extended this level of support once, but they would not regard it as ‘reasonable’ (all factors considered, including fast-tightening budgets) to do so for this even more expensive new posting.
JC became upset and angry at the decision and the subsequent unhappy attempts by FCO HR to defend/explain it. She concluded that the whole episode amounted to discrimination under the Act. One thing led to another. Hence the Tribunal hearing this week.
This hearing has some far-reaching implications for UK/EU disability policies across the board, since it forces all concerned to look squarely at one painful question: are some disabilities just too expensive to be supported at the workplace, either in the
As a barrister manqué I was delighted to watch JC’s barrister peck away at the FCO’s arguments. The senior FCO HR people responsible for the decisions ducked and weaved with determination. But they were drawn ineluctably towards implicitly saying that it would not be ‘reasonable’ to support JC in the vast majority of overseas postings for which she might bid, now or in the future: whereas other disabilities could reasonably be supported and indeed were supported overseas, the costs for dealing with a profoundly deaf officer in most cases would be just too high.
Hence the policy and ethical drama quietly unfolding in
JC’s barrister nibbled away at the fact that the policy appears to have been based mainly on what the FCO’s HR budget could afford, not on what the FCO budget might afford (a wider test which, I think, is what the legislation requires employers to consider).
The FCO also seemed to be arguing that if JC were more senior there could be a case for supporting her, while also hinting that deaf people probably were not suitable for a range of senior action-oriented positions anyway.
Above all, they would not give a clear answer to what level of cost was reasonable for deaf people overseas. At one point an FCO HR person cheerily opined that the Tribunal might help them answer that one(!). Indeed they might.
JC’s barrister also probed away at the fact that no questions at all are asked about the number of children FCO people have who might need expensive education fees in the
In other words, had JC not been deaf and married a divorced man with five children of school age (or even had a civil partnership with a woman with five children of school age), the FCO would have not thought twice about coughing up large fees for the children’s education. Did this not suggest an element of discrimination against deaf colleagues, ie that large slabs of money are promptly found for some ‘personal/family’ posting purposes, but not others?
All of which said, there were hints of mutterings from other disabled people in the FCO that JC’s support package has been so large that other deserving disabled colleagues have been denied fair support they needed.
What in all this maelstrom of conflicting claims and policies and priorities and budget cuts is Reasonable?
Gripping stuff.
The case continues. The formal public proceedings should be wrapped up this week, but with judgement to come only later in the year.
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