Is this discriminatory? Job and driving requirement

[Mygardenandme]

Civil service job. Offices throughout England and Wales. HEO. Office based but can be based at any office.

99% of travel in our dept is done by train and you are strongly discouraged from driving. Although you have to justify any travel at all.

I spoke with the person doing the job atm and it involves lots of meetings with people from all the offices from AA to SEO. There are some external meetings but they are on Teams or very rarely in a central location. All the meetings are planned in advance.

The current (small) project team has staff throughout England so most meetings are on Teams. When they do rarely meet face to face, most travel by train. Im not in an office where any of them are based.

So clearly there is a need for travel. Although not as much as first implied and generally done by train. The job advert states that a driving license is essential. I have epilepsy so no driving license.

I'm going to speak with the team leader to see if I can still apply. If not, I'm not going to do anything about it. It's quite a visible team and I like working in the dept so dont want to get reputation.

YANBU - A driving license might be preferred but as long as someone is willing to travel by train, there is no reason they cant do the job. It is disability discrimination.

YABU - The job might be mainly Teams based but there is enough travel to make relying on public transport too risky. It's not disability discrimination because they can justify the driving license requirement.

A driving license clearly isn't essential. Either driving, not just travelling, but driving specifically is part of your job or it isn't. And it isn't.

So delivery drivers, taxi drivers, bus drivers, most estate agents, breakdown rescue, country vets etc all do actually have to drive. Otherwise it's either completely irrelevant or just nice to have.

I'd imagine they would waive it or change it as it seems pointless as a criteria.

There ARE adjustments that can be made: providing a driver or a taxis are valid adjustments. We had a blind sales rep who had a driver. They can also give you fewer visits a day. The disability discrimination legislation in the Equality Act is asymmetric - ie it only covers those with disabilities, not without (unlike other areas of that legislation which covers everyone). So not discriminating against your non-disabled colleagues.

I’m a bit out of touch now but Access to Work used to help pay for things like this - worth checking if they still do.

It's not discriminatory if the job cannot be done without it, it's all about reasonable adjustments. If there is a way that the job can be done as effectively without driving then yes it would be discriminatory to make it essential.
We are also a commuinity nhs, but in London,so it is possible to get around without driving, if anything it's sometimes easier as parking in some areas is really hard. So for us to say driving is essential would be discriminatory. But it doesn't sound like it's discriminatory for your team. However you would have to have options available such as pool cars for those who cannot afford to buy a car. One locum role bought me a car as I didn't have one!

Just apply for a job that suits your life. That’s what most people do.

The key word is REASONABLE.

It is not reasonable to adjust the job so much that it's a completely different job eg if 90% of a health visitors role is visiting people but they cant, they cant expect the employer to say "never mind, we'll just get rid of that bit of the job". As I said earlier, a reasonable adjustment might be ensuring they only work in areas with good public transport instead of somewhere rural.

It also has to be reasonable in terms of cost. If I had to drive everyday, there is no way the CS could justify paying a driver for me. It's not reasonable for them to employ another member of staff for me to do an essential part of my job. It is reasonable for them to say "you need to be at a 9o'clock meeting half way accross the country once a month so we'll pay for a hotel the night before".

Yes, reasonable is a key word. It’s a tricky one because what is ‚reasonable’ is onlunever defined by a court when it gets that far. Although those used to making adjustments will have a good idea. So it you can’t visit people because even with a driver you couldn’t get out of the car and into someone‘s home, then possibly the provision of adjustments might be too great. If you need to get to some out of the way places, can’t drive but otherwise can do the role then that’s a different matter. Your employer has a legal obligation to make these adjustments and what might seem like an expensive adjusment to you, if reasonable is a hell of a lot cheaper than a tribunal payout

I wouldn't say that a full time driver or significantly less work than everyone else are reasonable adjustments.

Reasonable adjustments are having appointments lined up with public transport, doing the ones that work better with it anyway, such as city centre. Or starting an in person meeting in the afternoon so people can get there and back by public transport on the same day.

@Bjorkdidit they absolutely are reasonable adjustments if that is what is needed. But yes so are lining up appointments someone can travel by public transport IF they are able.But is case specific What is reasonable depends on the individual’s needs and what is reasonable to expect from the particular organisation they work for.