The legal consequence
Failure to make reasonable adjustments is unlawful disability discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. A disabled worker can claim at a tribunal, which can award uncapped compensation, including injury to feelings. The duty itself is set out in the Act: changing a way of working, a physical feature, or providing an auxiliary aid where one of these would otherwise put a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage Equality Act 2010, s.20. Not making the adjustment is treated by the Act as a form of discrimination in its own right s.21.
What a tribunal can order
A worker or job applicant can first raise it informally or as a formal grievance, and notify Acas for early conciliation; if it stays unresolved they can bring a tribunal claim Acas. A claim usually has to be brought within three months of the failure, so exposure can build quietly before you hear about it. If the claim succeeds, the tribunal can make a declaration that you discriminated, order compensation for financial loss and for injury to feelings, and make a recommendation that you take specific action by a set date EHRC. Ignore a recommendation and the compensation can be increased.
The part employers miss: the compensation is uncapped
Unlike an ordinary unfair dismissal award, discrimination compensation has no statutory ceiling. On top of any lost pay, the tribunal adds a separate sum for injury to feelings, set against the published “Vento” bands. For claims brought on or after 6 April 2026 those bands run from £1,300 in the lower band to over £62,900 in the most serious cases Vento bands, April 2026. Add legal costs and a public judgment with your name on it, and the cost of doing nothing usually dwarfs the cost of the adjustment — the Act says the employer, not the worker, pays for the adjustment in any case.
Two things commonly catch employers out. The worker does not need a formal diagnosis for the duty to apply — what matters is whether they meet the Act’s legal test for disability, which autism, ADHD and dyslexia commonly meet, though each is judged on its own facts. And it is the failure, not the disability, that the tribunal judges — so waiting to be asked, or declining to engage, is the riskier course.
Where the law comes from
Related
This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.