Equality Act 2010 – Impact on Recruitment Changes from 1 October 2010

Legal position The new Equality Act endeavours to strengthen measures to discourage discrimination on the grounds of disability and as a consequence has made it unlawful to ask about an applicant’s health before making a provisional offer of employment This is both directly of the applicant or through referees

New process Successful applicant – provisional offer made On Rome – dept contact move candidate to ‘conditional offer made’ Pop up reminder to send standard requesting sickness absence information Candidate responds to Department Option 1 Absence record within UCL trigger points – proceed with appointment Option 2 Absence record high, but accounted for (e.g. one off operation). Discuss with HRC – proceed with appointment Option 3 Absence record high, not accounted for. Refer to OH for advice on fitness to work and reasonable adjustments – proceed or rescind appointment

References Employer reference, including question about sickness absence, only to be sent when a provisional offer made Academic reference (without sickness absence question) can be sent prior to interview Reference templates in Rome and the Recruitment & Selection Policy

Contract offers Verbal offers and written contracts must be provisional offers subject to sickness absence satisfactory to UCL If sickness absence is not satisfactory we can and should rescind the job offer