By John Scovell

In August 2003 I applied for a job with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) as Public Affairs Assistance under the guaranteed interview scheme for people with disabilities. The Public Affairs Department represent an organisation to Parliament, Central and Local Government and similar bodies.

In my application I attached a disability statement in which I outlined the fact that I was Dyspraxic and Dyslexic, the problems these disabilities gave me and ways in which I overcome them such as by using Texthelp.

In September I took a selection test for the post, which included spelling and proof-reading. No adjustments were made for the test to take account of my disability. A month after taking the test I was informed by the FSA that I had not passed the test and would therefore not be invited to attend an interview.

I telephoned the Disability Rights Commission help line and spoke to an advisor. He said they should have made adjustments to the test to take account of my disability. He said I should write to the FSA and ask them to substantially justify why they did not make any adjustments.

In their reply, the FSA said that due to pressure of time they were unable to make adjustments. I contacted the DRC help line again, and they said that was not really an excuse for a large organisation, as they should already have procedures in place. The advisor said he would pass my details on to a caseworker. He also advised me that I had three months to issued proceedings form the date I received the letter of rejection.

I was contacted by a caseworker, who said I needed to make a complaint to an Industrial Tribunal within three months of taking the test! That gave me about two days in which to get the completed form out, which I just about managed.

It was explained to me that the FSA would probably argue that I did not have a disability and that it would depend on the individual tribunal whether or not they accepted dyspraxia and dyslexia as being disabilities.

In fact, they did not do that but instead said that they had made a mistake and applied an adjustment retrospectively when the mistake had been made, by inflating my score in the test by 25%. Therefore, there had been no discrimination.

I spoke to the DRC case worker about this, who confirmed that it was established in law that they could do that. It would be up to a tribunal to decide whether this was a reasonable adjustment.

As the DRC could not provide me with legal representation, I approached a 'no win, no fee lawyer'. They would not take my case on because they felt there was not enough chance of my winning the case. At the same time the DRC closed my file, leaving me feeling isolated and wondering if I should carry on.

The case should have been heard on 22 March, but a few days before, I had a telephone call from ACCAS saying the FSA were prepared to offer me £300.00 in an out of court settlement while accepting no liability.