Equality Act 2010 – Impact on Recruitment

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

2. 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

3. New process Successful applicant – provisional offer made On Rome – dept contact move candidate to ‘conditional offer made’ Pop up reminder to send standard email 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

4. 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

5. 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