Hi Margaret,
My understanding is as follows; Section 60 of the Equality Act 2010 relates to the use of health questions during recruitment exercises. Under Section 60 it is not permissible to ask questions that aim to establish how many days of sickness absence an applicant has accrued during previous employment prior to the candidate being made a conditional or unconditional offer of employment.
Note the use of the word 'prior' .......... it is still permissible to ask questions of this type after an offer of employment has been made, the rationale being that if a job offer has already been made the information cannot be used to discriminate between candidates.
Under section 60(6), employers will still be able to ask such questions for the purpose of supporting applicants with disabilities. That is to; establish whether any reasonable adjustment(s) may be required to ensure that the applicant can participate in interviews and other forms of assessment, and/or whether the applicant will be able to carry out a function that is intrinsic to the work concerned (e.g. if the job involves driving there may be a requirement to have a particular level of eye sight).
It will be important to make it clear to applicants as to why the questions are being asked and for what purpose the information given will be used.
There may be some concerns in regards to the relationship between Section 60 and fitness to work, and whilst such concerns may arise as the result of health screening following a job offer, these would need to be taken forward as capability issues.
Regards, Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Margaret Sen
Sent: 11 October 2010 14:35
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [OCC-HEALTH] Equalities Act
Our HR department has asked if we should be asking clients about previous sickness absence on PEQs (re Equalities Act), we are undecided. Some studies have shown this is not an indicator of absence in the future so should we be asking anyway?
Would be grateful for any thoughts.
Margaret Sen
Occ Health
ECC
Essex
Sent from my iPhone
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