Posted By J Knight Hi Delwynne, The DDA asks for reasonable adjustments; how is it possible to define reasonable adjustment without taking the needs of the individual into account, and how can we determine the needs of the individial without an assessment? My answer to your personnel people is yes, it is 'discriminatory' in the sense that it is applied only to certain people, but it is not discriminatory in the sense of leading to less favourable treatment, and would not therefore be a breach of employment law. As for human rights, ask them to read the Act; nowhere does it say that we have a human right to not have our particular needs considered, and it applies only to public bodies. Believe me, we have 6 people in our HR department, they are all CIPD and all are happy with the idea of RA based approaches to disability, John

Posted By Dave Dowan Hi Please follow this link , Excellent source of information, I think you will find you have to carry out a risk assessment http://www.drc-gb.org/ Dave

Posted By Kieran J Duignan As a Fellow of the CIPD I'm frequently appalled by the sheer legal illiteracy of some H R folk. As a registered member of the Ergonomics Society, I applaud your awareness of the potential contribution of ergonomics to adapting the physical and cognitive environments of people with disabilities. Regretably, ergonomic science is just a black hole as far as the CIPD is concerned. As the DDA is increasingly subtle, do read the guidelines on the DRC website and advise your HR colleagues to do likewise (reminding them of the 2005 update of the DDA).

Posted By J Knight Just to add emphasis to Neil's point; you always have to work with the disabled person, and be prepared to accept their views of what constitutes a reasonable adjustment! At the Met Branch IOSH seminar about DDA vs H&S, one of the speakers told us a story about a company which recruited a senior HR person who was a wheelchair user. After the interview they realised that she wouldn't be able to reach the lift buttons, so they refurbished the lifts, fitting new buttons. The new recruit turned up on her first day, and on being told about the refurbishment said, Oh' I won't be needing this then'. 'This' was an 18 inch piece of dowelling with a pencil rubber stuck on the end; her reasonable adjustment for using a lift! Probably (sadly) not a true story, but it does illustrate rather beautifully Neil's point that we should be doing an assessment with somebody, rather than for them, John

Posted By Ken Taylor I wonder whether your HR people have got the idea that you are planning to consider the disabled person as a risk in the workplace that needs to be assessed rather than assessing the risks to the disabled person. A good example of the need for personal risk assessment arises with pregnant workers and nursing mothers for whom there is now a duty to assess workplace risks relating to their condition. What do your HR people do with that one?

Posted By duncan abbott You cannot make reasonable adjustments for disabled workers, unless you carry out a personal risk assessment. If you know of a person's disability but fail to make reasonable adjustments then you will be in breach of the DDA legislation. Sounds like your Personnel need to go on a disability awareness program. Or perhaps sugget they look at some of the compensaiton payments companies such as JWT face. Glad to hear you are using ergonomics as the basis of your assessments. For your interest an article of mine is in April's issue of Health and Safeyt at Work 'Undertaking personal risk assessments for disabled workers. Duncan ergonomist www.enricosmog.com