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Statistics on DDA employment cases

1999 DfEE Report on Monitoring the Disability Discrimination Act, 1995

This report dated May 1999 looks at the operation of the Act to July 1998. There were only about nine court cases on the goods and services provisions, and the following covers the employment provisions.

Updates:
What follows is based on the 1999 report. However note that a further report dated March 2000 is now available.
As at February 2002: another report will be published soon. Also latest figures still show those legally represented as much more likely to win, and that the proportion of recruitment cases is low indicating that the DDA is not very successful in helping people enter the labour market.)

Success rate and type of representation (pages 211-219)

Overall 16% of cases were successful (or partly successful) at tribunal hearings.

A "multivariate analysis", attempting to discount the effect of other variables (e.g type of disability, occupation), indicated that an applicant represented by a barrister is five times more likely to win than an applicant in person, and an applicant represented by a solicitor is almost four times more likely to win than an applicant in person.

This does not necessarily prove that legal representation affects the outcome, or affects it to that degree. Another explanation or factor involved could be that legally represented applicants have stronger cases on average, eg because those with stronger cases are more likely to spend money on lawyers or because lawyers are unwilling to take weak cases. However many people who had actually been participants in cases did now consider that representation had an important influence on the outcome of cases (page 226).

The following are the actual percentages of those successful at the hearing using different types of representation (without adjusting for the effect of other variables):
12% of those represented themselves;
26.9% of those represented by a solicitor;
36.4% of those represented by a barrister/counsel;
15.2% of those represented by trade union officials
11.7% of those represented by others.

35% of applicants were legally represented, including 5% by Law Centres, compared to 59% of respondents (i.e employers - note that the 59% only includes external legal representation and perhaps half of the 17% who were internally represented will have used in-house lawyers). 13% of applicants were represented by a trade union and 6% by a Citizens Advice Bureau/advice organisation. 22% of applicants represented themselves. Lack of finance seemed to be the main reason for appearing in person or relying on free advice. (See from page 101.)

Actions complained about

68.5% of cases related to dismissal. Only 10.8% related to recruitment. 57% of cases were coupled with some non-DDA claim, often unfair dismissal

ACAS statistics to April 1999

Source: Equal Opportunities Review no 79 May/June 1998 at p15

ACAS had registered over 5,000 complaints under the Act.

54.5% related to dismissal
24% related to failure to provide a reasonable adjustment
13.2% related to detrimental treatment short of dismissal
8.3% related to recruitment.

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