Published on 12, July, 2020
For the sake of confidentiality and ongoing proceedings, I will not disclose names of organisations or individuals concerned.
Background: I was diagnosed when I was 19 with autism. I had never worked before before this. I am now in my early 20’s and managed to get a job 2 years ago. I was not recruited through normal methods, I was given an opportunity on a scheme which became an apprenticeship but wasn’t considered recruited through fair and open therefore I couldn’t apply for internal vacancies, only external. I was given a contract and I had the same employment rights as everyone else.
My autism traits of repetition and accuracy allowed me to produce the work at extreme speed, productivity that had never been heard of and 100% accuracy.
A year into my apprenticeship, a vacancy within the office for the exact job role I was doing was being advertised. I applied and was given a judgment test but I failed it. I asked for it to be bypassed quoting caselaw; Betts Vs The Government Legal Service. This was then bypassed a week later. Then for the interview. It was a competency based interview and I failed it. No reasonable adjustments were put in place and I’m currently going through an ET.
The thing that really concerns me within the autism community is the percentage of autistic adults in full time employment. It’s at 16% I believe for full time and 32% for some sort of work.
Now my position is rare, because most people if not all, wont get into a job without normal recruitment methods, therefore no argument and if you fail a recruitment, you are usually not in the job role therefore it’s hard to do anything. I am in the job role, I was the best in the office over achieving and yet I can’t pass an interview. If I can’t pass an interview when I’m doing the exact job, how on Earth is someone else with the same diagnosis expected to?
I believe this is a real opportunity here to prove interviewing and autism just doesn’t work. Does anyone have any opinions, legal knowledge or is their any organisations that would consider this a landmark they are willing to assist with?
I ask if you can identify the organisation, don’t post them as it could potentially impact
I need to be more specific. I don’t want the ET to rule that The employer failed to make reasonable adjustments for a disabled person under the equality act. I want it to rule that autistic candidates are not suitable for interviews therefore a precedent can be set for all future vacancies and increase the employment rate
Unfortunately, the ET Regs (2013) do not make allowance for specificity of discriminatory practice; they only fall back on the existing protections under both ERA (1996) and EQ (2010). Basically, to get the type of legal precedent you are after would mean either a change in the law (probably Equality Act (2010)) to make ASD a separate and distinct protected characteristic (I believe someone on here was trying to set up a YouGov poll to do just that) or separate and distinct litigation identifying the nature of the disability that you were discriminated by (in this instance the way that we neurodiverse individuals are, basically, crap at interviews). With the right advocate, you might be able to get the Equalities Commission to bite but they may just state that they have it covered under section 20