Civil service, reasonable adjustments, home working etc

[FairTurtle]

Need some advice. I'm a civil servant, mid-level (Grade 7, if that means anything to anyone here). I've been wfh full-time as a reasonable adjustment for a physical health condition/ disability for the last 2 years. My department (a major department, think Cabinet Office level) has kept subjecting me to occupational health assessment to "test" what level of office attendance is possible. All the recommendations from the assessments have always come back saying I need to keep working from home, 100% of the time. They are now being difficult and saying it's incompatible with my job role. Despite the fact I've been doing this job remotely for 2 years. I've also had a lot of issues in the past with lack of understanding from managers, unhelpful comments, and not respecting adjustments they said they had accepted.

I'm aware reasonable adjustments don't have to be granted, only considered, and it may be the case that my employers come back and say it doesn't suit the business any longer. I'm thinking perhaps I should ask for a managed move.

Has anyone got experience of this, or of also having a 100% working from home reasonable adjustment? I am feeling so sick and stressed with this all - office attendance just isn't possible for me - and wonder if this just isn't tenable in the civil service any longer.

Fellow G7 with a disability here 👋 and I'm really sorry they're putting you through ghis. Has your contract been amended to reflect WFH or is it an agreement with your LM? Is it your LM referring you to Occ Health or HR?

But you've had it in place for ages and your performance has been fine. They would have to prove you can't do the job working from home and it sounds like they wouldn't have the evidence. You may have to get some legal advice OP.

Talk to ACAS.

Maybe it's a change from a hybrid to a wfh contract that you need so there can be no confusion anymore.

From a practical perspective, if they are making your life difficult then would you rather take a managed move to another role? There are people on permanent home worker contracts at your grade (and above) in my department - I would think the approach/attitude depends on the role. Do you think you would perform better at your role if you attended the office, is there some reason why they want you to be physically there? Do you particularly want to stay in your current role? If so, agree with previous comments about speaking to the Union and maybe getting advice.

As a manager, I would fully support someone requesting a permanent 'designated home worker' contract if I felt they could adequately perform their role at home, and they had a disability that made travel difficult. These options do exist in my part of the CS.