Ishola v Transport for London (2020) EWCA Civ 112 is concerned with the meaning of “provision, criterion or practice” (“PCP”) in Sections 20 and 21 of the Equality Act 2010, one of the three requirements in the creation of a duty to make “reasonable adjustments” in respect of a disabled person. A PCP is also part of the definition of “indirect discrimination” in Section 19 of the Act, but is not defined in the Act, or in its predecessory legislation.
Simler LJ said, at paragraph 27, that the words “must mean the same thing” in relation to the two different ways in which unlawful disability discrimination may occur. However, paragraph 6.10 of the Statutory Code of Practice states that PCP “should be construed widely”.
Simler LJ, with whom Sir Jack Beatson agreed, said (emphasis added):-
“35. The words “provision, criterion or practice” are not terms of art, but are ordinary English words. I accept that they are broad and overlapping, and in light of the object of the legislation, not to be narrowly construed or unjustifiably limited in their application. I also bear in mind the statement in the Statutory Code of Practice that the phrase PCP should be construed widely. However, it is significant that Parliament chose to define claims based on reasonable adjustment and indirect discrimination by reference to these particular words, and did not use the words “act” or “decision” in addition or instead. As a matter of ordinary language, I find it difficult to see what the word “practice” adds to the words if all one-off decisions and acts necessarily qualify as PCPs, …If something is simply done once without more, it is difficult to see on what basis it can be said to be “done in practice”. It is just done; and the words “in practice” add nothing.
36. The function of the PCP in a reasonable adjustment context is to identify what it is about the employer’s management of the employee or its operation that causes substantial disadvantage to the disabled employee. The PCP serves a similar function in the context of indirect discrimination, where particular disadvantage is suffered by some and not others because of an employer’s PCP. In both cases, the act of discrimination that must be justified is not the disadvantage which a claimant suffers … but the practice, process, rule (or other PCP) under, by or in consequence of which the disadvantageous act is done. To test whether the PCP is discriminatory or not it must be capable of being applied to others because the comparison of disadvantage caused by it has to be made by reference to a comparator to whom the alleged PCP would also apply. I accept of course … that the comparator can be a hypothetical comparator to whom the alleged PCP could or would apply.
37. In my judgment, however widely and purposively the concept of a PCP is to be interpreted, it does not apply to every act of unfair treatment of a particular employee. That is not the mischief which the concept of indirect discrimination and the duty to make reasonable adjustments are intended to address. If an employer unfairly treats an employee by an act or decision and neither direct discrimination nor disability related discrimination is made out because the act or decision was not done/made by reason of disability or other relevant ground, it is artificial and wrong to seek to convert them by a process of abstraction into the application of a discriminatory PCP.
38. In context, and having regard to the function and purpose of the PCP in the Equality Act 2010, all three words carry the connotation of a state of affairs (whether framed positively or negatively and however informal) indicating how similar cases are generally treated or how a similar case would be treated if it occurred again. It seems to me that “practice” here connotes some form of continuum in the sense that it is the way in which things generally are or will be done. That does not mean it is necessary for the PCP or “practice” to have been applied to anyone else in fact. Something may be a practice or done “in practice” if it carries with it an indication that it will or would be done again in future if a hypothetical similar case arises. Like Kerr J, I consider that although a one-off decision or act can be a practice, it is not necessarily one.”
The Court of Appeal held that the Employment Tribunal had been entitled to conclude that TFL’s failure to investigate a grievance before the appellant’s dismissal was not a practice of requiring the claimant to return to work without a proper and fair investigation into that grievance.