Reasonable Adjustments Tribunal Lessons - McRobbie v DWP £17,280 Award

An employment tribunal has ordered the Department for Work and Pensions to pay £17,280 to Alison McRobbie, a former work coach with arthritis. The remedy judgment, published on 26 May 2026, awarded £12,000 for a failure to make reasonable adjustments, £1,500 for disability harassment and £3,780 in interest.

Miss McRobbie declared a disability when she applied for her job in 2021. Nobody asked her what it was or whether she needed anything changed. When she requested a suitable chair, changes to her desk and monitor height and a vanity screen to cover her lower leg in July 2021, the equipment order was not raised until 20 December 2021.

The tribunal, sitting at Southampton before Employment Judge Rayner, found it surprising that a large employer with established disability procedures had no automatic referral for a new starter who had already disclosed a disability. It also held the DWP liable for a colleague's comment mocking her specialist chair, even though the remark was not intended to offend.

For employers, the case is a warning about process gaps rather than bad intentions. Individual managers were mostly found to have acted reasonably. Liability arose because the systems around them failed: no referral at onboarding, slow handling of requests, and an attendance policy that was never adjusted.

The judgments are published on the gov.uk employment tribunal decisions page for McRobbie v Department of Work and Pensions. The case was also reported by HR Magazine in June 2026.

The Facts

Miss McRobbie joined the DWP on 19 June 2021 as an enhanced work coach in Universal Credit. She applied under the Disability Confident scheme and ticked yes when asked whether she had a disability. She had arthritis in her hands and wrists, made worse by a car crash, along with neck and back problems.

Her induction included no discussion of workplace adjustments. The tribunal found that despite the declaration on her application form, nobody had asked what her disability was or whether she required any adjustments at work.

On 21 July 2021 she emailed her temporary line manager asking to discuss her required adaptations. The same day she emailed a professional development coach describing what she needed: a chair, a change to her desk height, a change to her monitor height and a vanity screen for her lower leg. She asked how to apply for the adaptations without it being a fuss.

Her line manager replied on 27 July 2021 and signposted her to an online desk risk assessment. The tribunal accepted this was appropriate signposting. The process then drifted.

On 20 December 2021 Miss McRobbie sent in a workplace passport describing her disability in detail. On the same day a manager put a high priority work order through to DWP estates for a chair with neck and head support, and a roller mouse was approved. Five months had passed since the original request.

By then she had gone off sick in early December 2021 and afterwards worked from home as an adjustment. The specialist chair and height adjustable desk were not installed in the office until October 2022, when an engineer attended to build the desk.

On the day the new chair arrived, a colleague sat in it and remarked that she felt like Stephen Hawking. Miss McRobbie was upset by the comparison and later raised it as harassment. Separately, from July 2022 the DWP knew she had a mental health impairment, and she repeatedly asked for the sickness absence trigger points in the attendance policy to be adjusted for her. They never were.

She was later dismissed and brought three claims to the tribunal. They were heard over 15 days in July 2024.

The Findings

The tribunal upheld two complaints and dismissed everything else, including her claim of unfair dismissal.

The first upheld complaint was a failure to make reasonable adjustments under section 20 of the Equality Act 2010. The DWP failed to adjust the sickness absence trigger points that applied to her from July 2022 onwards, despite knowing about her mental health impairment and despite her raising the issue with several managers. The tribunal found this was a continuing failure that lasted until the end of her employment.

The second was harassment related to disability under section 26 of the Equality Act 2010. The tribunal found that the colleague did make a comment comparing the specialist chair to Stephen Hawking's, although it found Miss McRobbie had exaggerated the details over time. The comment was unwanted, related to her disability, and capable of offending her dignity or creating an adverse environment for her.

Notably, the tribunal accepted the colleague meant the remark to be light-hearted and friendly. That did not save the employer. Harassment is judged by the effect of the conduct as well as its purpose, taking account of the employee's perception and whether that reaction is reasonable. The DWP, as employer, was liable for the comment.

The complaints about the 2021 equipment delay were dismissed as out of time, so they did not add to the award. The tribunal's criticism of the onboarding process was still pointed. It said: "We find it surprising that, having appointed somebody who had indicated that they had a disability, the Claimant was not automatically referred to that process once she started employment and that she had to initiate the discussion about possible reasonable adjustments being made."

The Award

At a remedy hearing on 9 January 2026, with a further day in chambers on 21 January 2026, the tribunal assessed compensation as follows:

• £12,000 for injury to feelings arising from the failure to adjust the sickness absence trigger points.
• £1,500 for the harassment relating to the chair comment.
• £3,780 in interest, calculated at 8 per cent over 3.5 years.

The total came to £17,280. Miss McRobbie had sought far more. Her schedule of loss claimed £56,200 for injury to feelings, £35,000 for psychiatric injury, £15,000 for physical aggravation, £55,000 in aggravated damages and past and future financial losses of nearly £200,000. The tribunal rejected those heads of claim.

There was a sting in the tail. The tribunal ordered her to pay £10,912 towards the DWP's costs because of specific unreasonable conduct during the litigation. Costs orders remain unusual in the employment tribunal, and the net award was substantially reduced as a result.

Lessons for Employers

Each failure in this case maps to a document or process that most organisations can put in place without difficulty.

1. Build an automatic referral trigger into your adjustments policy

The tribunal was surprised that a disability declared at application did not automatically start the DWP's workplace adjustment process. Your reasonable adjustments policy should state that any disability disclosure, whether at recruitment, induction or later, triggers an adjustments conversation without the employee having to ask. Induction checklists should include a specific prompt for the line manager.

2. Track requests against response deadlines

The July 2021 request was not turned into an equipment order until 20 December 2021, and the chair was not installed until October 2022. A policy should set deadlines: acknowledge a request within days, reach a decision within a defined period, and record the reason for any delay. Acas guidance on reasonable adjustments also expects interim measures, such as temporary equipment or home working, to be considered while orders are outstanding.

3. Train managers to own the duty rather than signpost it

The line manager's signposting to an online assessment was found reasonable, but nobody then owned the process end to end. Managers also failed to deal with repeated requests to adjust attendance trigger points, which became the £12,000 finding. Training should cover when the section 20 duty arises, what counts as an adjustment (including changes to absence triggers as well as equipment), and who is responsible for follow-through.

4. Enforce a dignity at work policy

The DWP was liable for a single comment by a colleague who meant no harm. Employers are responsible for harassment committed by staff in the course of employment unless they can show they took all reasonable steps to prevent it. That defence depends on having a dignity at work policy, communicating it, and training staff on disability awareness, including comments about visible equipment such as specialist chairs.

Common Errors to Avoid

• Waiting for the employee to raise adjustments. The duty can arise as soon as the employer knows, or could reasonably be expected to know, about the disability and the disadvantage. Silence at induction damaged the DWP's position badly.
• Signposting a process instead of owning it. Pointing someone to an online form is not the same as making the adjustment. Five months passed before an order was even raised.
• Treating adjustments as equipment only. Changing sickness absence trigger points is a reasonable adjustment too. The failure to adjust them, not the chair delay, produced the £12,000 award.
• Assuming a joke cannot be harassment. The tribunal accepted the chair comment was meant to be friendly and still found harassment, because the effect on the employee is what counts.
• Leaving requests untracked. Without deadlines, ownership and records, a request can drift for months, and every month of drift becomes evidence against you at tribunal.

How Policy Pros Can Help

Policy Pros writes the documents that would have prevented each finding in this case. Our reasonable adjustments employer guide shows how to build a policy with an automatic referral trigger, response deadlines and a clear record of decisions, so a disclosure at application never disappears into a gap between managers.

We also help employers get the wider framework right. Our guidance on disability in the workplace covers attendance trigger points, occupational health referrals and workplace passports, while our dignity and respect at work policies give you the foundation for the all reasonable steps defence that limits liability for comments like the one in this case.

If your handbook is silent on adjustments or harassment, we can review and rewrite your full suite of HR policies and procedures so they work together as one system. Contact us for a fixed quote.