Reasonable Adjustments for Shortlisted Organisations

Reasonable adjustments for shortlisted organisations

Awards are often framed as celebration and recognition. For disabled people and those with live disputes, they can also be a source of risk. This page sets out what reasonable adjustments should look like when an organisation is shortlisted for a Criminal Justice Alliance Award.

The Recruitment Junction case is used here as a live example of what can go wrong when reasonable adjustments are treated as optional or are handled defensively.

Back to CJA Awards hub Open TRJ evidence archive Read the CJA Awards article

What reasonable adjustments mean in this context

The Equality Act 2010 expects organisations to remove or reduce barriers that place disabled people at a substantial disadvantage. In plain language, if the usual way of doing something locks a disabled person out or makes it much harder, the organisation should change the way it operates where that is reasonable.

This applies when charities deliver services, when they handle complaints and when they are put on a public stage as award nominees or winners. It also applies to how awards bodies themselves engage with disabled people who contact them about nominees.

In the TRJ case, reasonable adjustments would have included a calm, written process, extra processing time, and a non punitive response to a polite challenge about CV templates and values.

For shortlisted organisations and winners

Before the ceremony

When an organisation knows a disabled person has raised concerns about its conduct, it should assume that further contact may be needed during the awards period. Reasonable adjustments might include:

keeping at least one email route open while complaints or legal rights are active
agreeing in writing how communication will work, including response times
avoiding sudden service withdrawal where someone is in a vulnerable position
not using awards publicity as a way to silence or discourage criticism

At and after the ceremony

Awards publicity can make it harder for disabled people to speak up. The power imbalance grows while the risk of reputational harm to the organisation also grows. Sensible steps include:

designating a contact point who understands the dispute and the adjustments agreed
signposting clearly to complaint routes, funders and regulators
avoiding defensive or dismissive public messaging about critical voices

None of this stops an organisation from celebrating its work. It simply recognises that human beings affected by its decisions still exist while the trophy is being polished.

For the Criminal Justice Alliance and awards bodies

Awards bodies sit in a different legal position to service providers, but they still influence the safety and wellbeing of disabled people when they endorse a charity or project that is in live dispute with a service user.

Reasonable adjustments at awards level

The CJA and similar bodies can:

offer accessible channels for people to flag safeguarding or equality concerns about nominees
acknowledge receipt transparently and explain how information will be used
design judging criteria that do not treat complaints as an irritation to be ignored
consider pausing or caveating awards where serious unresolved issues exist

In the TRJ case, this would have meant active awareness that a disabled service user was raising concerns about unlawful email blocking, data handling and funding statements, rather than treating the situation as background noise.

For staff, trustees and funders

Staff

Front line and casework staff inside a nominee organisation are often the first to see where reasonable adjustments are missing. They should be able to raise concerns internally without fear of retaliation, particularly where a disabled person is being blocked or sidelined during an award period.

Trustees and senior leaders

Boards should ask clear questions when awards are announced:

Are there any live disputes with disabled service users
Have reasonable adjustments been requested and properly considered
Are we blocking email addresses or restricting access while rights are active
Do our public statements about funding and practice match the documents

Funders

Funders can set an expectation that any organisation they back will:

honour Equality Act duties during award cycles
cooperate with reasonable requests for evidence from awards bodies
avoid retaliatory behaviour toward disabled people who speak up

The TRJ case as a live example

The Recruitment Junction dispute includes:

abrupt service withdrawal shortly after a polite written challenge
blocking of multiple email addresses while SAR and Equality Act requests were active
public claims of no public funding that were contradicted by at least £134,000 of evidence
a pattern of communication that made it harder, not easier, for a disabled service user to be heard

That combination is exactly the kind of pattern that ought to trigger enhanced scrutiny and reasonable adjustments whenever awards, funding or public endorsements are on the table.

The point is not that no organisation with a dispute should ever be shortlisted. The point is that disabled people should not be erased from the story once the confetti starts to fall.

therecruitmentjunction.co.uk