Reasonable Adjustments Test: 5 Proven Factors That Decide It
askVERA · Legal & Compliance
Reasonable Adjustments Test: 5 Proven Factors That Decide It
An adjustment does not have to be perfect to pass the reasonable adjustments test. It has to satisfy five specific factors, not a general sense of good intentions.
The Equality Act 2010 does not ask whether an organisation could theoretically do more for a disabled employee, tenant or service user. It asks whether a specific adjustment is reasonable, and reasonableness is not a matter of instinct. The reasonable adjustments test rests on five named factors set out by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and most organisations asked to name even three of them, on the spot, cannot.
That gap matters more than it sounds. A council, housing association or employer that treats “reasonable” as a vague, subjective standard is one that cannot show its working when a decision is later challenged. A council that can point to the five factors, and show how each one was weighed for a specific request, is in a fundamentally stronger position, whether the request was for a ramp, a flexible rota or a letter written in a format someone can actually understand.
What the duty behind the reasonable adjustments test actually says
Sections 20 and 21 of the Equality Act 2010 create a duty to take reasonable steps wherever a disabled person would otherwise face a substantial disadvantage. Failure to comply is not a separate wrong bolted on afterwards. Under the Act, it is itself an act of discrimination: section 21 states plainly that a failure to comply with the duty is a failure to comply with a duty to make reasonable adjustments, and that this amounts to discrimination against the disabled person concerned.
For service providers, public bodies and employers, that duty is also anticipatory. The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s own guidance is explicit that organisations have to anticipate, think about and try to predict what adjustments could be needed by customers with different types of disability, support and access requirements, rather than waiting to be asked. Waiting for a complaint before considering whether a letter, form or policy needs to exist in an accessible format is already behind where the duty expects an organisation to be.
The five factors behind the reasonable adjustments test
The EHRC sets out five factors that decide whether a specific adjustment passes the reasonable adjustments test in a given case. None of them stands alone, and none of them is a veto on its own; they are weighed together, against the actual circumstances of the person and the organisation.
1. How effective the change would be
An adjustment that does not actually remove the disadvantage is not much of an adjustment. Converting a tenancy agreement into a shorter document without changing its structure, its sentence length or its reliance on jargon may satisfy an internal checklist without doing anything for a reader who cannot process dense paragraphs. Effectiveness is judged against the actual barrier, not the appearance of effort.
2. How practical it is for the organisation to make
Practicality is about whether the change can genuinely be implemented, not just afforded. A single specialist producing accessible versions of every letter a large housing association sends is rarely practical at the volumes involved. A process that fits inside existing publishing workflows usually is.
3. The cost
Cost is one factor among five, never the whole answer. A small charity and a national employer will reasonably be held to different standards for the same request, precisely because the cost factor is assessed against what that specific organisation can bear, not against an absolute figure.
4. The organisation’s resources and size
This factor sits close to cost but is broader. It covers staffing, existing infrastructure and the practical capacity an organisation already has to draw on, not just its bank balance. A large NHS trust with an existing communications team is judged differently from a five-person community group operating from volunteers’ spare time.
5. Whether financial support is available
Where funding, grants or other support exist to help make an adjustment, that availability is itself a factor in deciding what is reasonable. An organisation that has not checked whether support exists has not fully tested the question, and a decision made without checking is harder to defend later.
Two mistakes that fail the reasonable adjustments test anyway
Most organisations that get into difficulty over reasonable adjustments are not acting in bad faith. They are usually making one of two specific errors.
The first is treating the test as subjective. The EHRC guidance is direct on this point: the test of what is reasonable is ultimately objective, not simply a matter of what an organisation personally believes is reasonable. A decision defended only by “we thought we were doing enough” does not engage with the five factors at all, and a tribunal is not required to accept good intentions as a substitute for having actually weighed them.
The second is treating the duty as reactive rather than anticipatory. Waiting until a specific person asks for a specific adjustment, rather than anticipating likely needs across a whole service or workforce, undermines the entire premise of the anticipatory duty. A GP practice that only produces an accessible appointment letter after a patient complains has already missed the point the Act is making.
Where accessible communication fits the reasonable adjustments test
For a large share of organisations, the adjustment actually in question is not physical. It is informational: a tenancy agreement, a benefits decision, a care plan, a consent form, a policy document that someone with a learning disability, dyslexia or low literacy cannot follow in its standard form. askVERA is one route organisations use to meet the factors that matter most in that scenario.
On effectiveness, an Easy Read or plain-language version built to a recognised standard demonstrably removes the barrier a dense original creates, rather than simply shortening it. On practicality and resources, converting documents at the point of publication, rather than through a specialist queue, is what makes anticipatory compliance achievable for organisations producing dozens or hundreds of documents a year rather than a handful. And because the underlying process is software rather than a fresh outside commission every time, the cost factor changes shape entirely: an organisation is no longer choosing between an expensive external agency and doing nothing.
None of this removes the judgement an organisation still has to apply. A named reviewer still needs to check that meaning has been preserved and that the specific adjustment fits the specific person or audience in front of them. What changes is that the organisation can show its working: which factors were considered, what was produced, and why it was judged reasonable in the circumstances.
Does the Equality Act require Easy Read documents specifically? No. It requires an adjustment that is effective and reasonable given the circumstances. Easy Read is one way many organisations satisfy the effectiveness factor for readers who need it, not a format the Act names or mandates on its own.
Who actually decides whether an adjustment was reasonable? If a decision is challenged, an employment tribunal or a court makes the final call. Organisations that can show how they weighed all five factors, rather than relying on a general sense of having tried, are in a far stronger position when that question is asked.
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