This page looks at making a complaint under the rules about services to the public, public authority functions, or private members’ clubs.
Helpful links
- DART – Disability Attitude Readjustment Tool, by Doug Paulley, an activist who had brought more than 40 discrimination cases. It also includes further links;
- Taking action about discrimination in goods and services (citizensadvice.org.uk)
- How to work out the value of a discrimination claim: A guide to quantifying discrimination claims in access to services cases (EHRC website) – Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Complain to the provider
I suggest you should at least complain to the relevant business or organisation. Whilst most people won’t want to bring a legal claim, if you tell the provider it lets them know that their customer service is not at the level it should be and may well lead them to take steps to correct this, such as staff training.
You could email or write a letter. You could post it on their Facebook page, or on Twitter using their twitter handle. This makes the complaint more public and may put greater pressure on the organisation.
Where it is about stammering, do contact STAMMA’s Advocacy Service, to help you complain most effectively.
News report: Coffee shop mocks stammer on customer’s cup (January 2017)
Starbucks asks a customer’s name when he or she orders a drink, and writes it on the cup. In this particular case, when the customer stammered on his name the barista allegedly wrote RRR…ichard on the cup. The customer found this extremely offensive and humiliating. He complained on the Starbucks Facebook page. The barista was suspended pending disciplinary action, and Starbucks apologised to the customer. More…
Case study: helpline laughing and saying ‘You can talk perfectly well if you want to’
A person who stammers rang a public helpline. The lady at the other end laughed at her as she was trying to speak. When the caller said that wasn’t acceptable, the lady replied: “You see, you can talk perfectly well when you want to!” The caller wrote to the helpline who responded excellently. They listened to their tape of the conversation and the lady was taken off the helpline for re-training. They also contacted the British Stammering Association for information to help them build stammering into their general training courses for helpline staff. More…
See more examples on Real examples: Services, which illustrate how complaining can produce positive results.
Advice
Equality Advisory and Support Service
You can contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
Legal advice
Remember, if is about stammering, in any event do contact STAMMA’s Advocacy Service.
You may (or may not) wish to get legal advice, or approach a relevant organisation – see my web page on Sources of Help and Advice, some of which are free. As well as helping you, legal representation (or even just preliminary legal advice) may help establish favourable precedents for people who stammer. Any cost obviously needs to be considered, or you may be eligible for legal aid.
In some cases the Equality and Human Rights Commission may occasionally assist in bringing proceedings (see page on EHRC).
Ombudsmen etc
If there is an Ombudsman or other enfocement body for the relevant service or sector, it may consider equality complaints. The financial services and rail ombudsmen below are just two examples.
In 2019 it was recommended that the Government and EHRC get enforcement bodies – including regulators, inspectorates and ombudsmen – more active in enforcing EqA obligations: Enforcement of Equality Act: proposals>Ombudsmen and other enforcement bodies.
Rail Ombudsman: increased compensation based on Vento guidelines
Courts award compensation for injury to feelings based on the Vento bands: below Compensatory payment. Under these, as at early 2025, the minimum compensation is about £1,200. By contrast, the average award of the UK Rail Ombudsman (railombudsman.org) for assistance failures was about £100, far less than a court would award.
The Rail Ombudsman has now been persuaded (by Doug Paulley) to review its policy, and has made an award of £1,200: Activist’s ‘genius’ two-year plan opens door to more generous compensation for disabled rail passengers (disabilitynewsservice.com), January 2025.
The Rail Ombudsman is not allowed to award more than £2500 (as at January 2025).
Financial Services Ombudsman
As at summer 2019, different bodies were likely to have very different approaches to whether they are interested in the EqA. However the July 2019 report of the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee Enforcing the Equality Act: the law and the role of the EHRC inquiry (pdf, publications.parliament.uk) said at para 106 that the Financial Ombudsman Service www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk was one organisation that had taken ownership of equality law, and that considered the requirements of the EqA when deciding what was “fair and reasonable”. See too Financial ombudsman clarifies Equality Act powers (archive of pinsentmasons.com), March 2019.
In February 2021 the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to help protect people in financial service markets (equalityhumanrights.com).
The Financial Ombudsman considering equality complaints against financial service providers is a separate issue from how far the Financial Ombudsman has to make reasonable adjustments in its own proceedings: Appearing in court>Financial Ombudsman case.
Going to court
If you wish to go on to court, any proceedings will normally go to the County Court, or the sheriff court in Scotland (EqA s.114). Court proceedings must usually be started within six months unless the court extends the period (EqA s.118). Claims in respect of employment services go to an employment tribunal.
I am not going to talk about how to run a court case. There are some resources above under Helpful links.
In practice very few cases on services seem to go to court. See the House of Lords Disability Committee report (pdf, parliament.uk) which discusses some of the issues.
For some points on evidence, see Proving disability and Proving discrimination. The latter includes some discussion on burden of proof, and a rule that may reverse the burden of proof: see Proving discrimination>Burden of proof.
Risk of having to pay other side’s costs
The government has issued a call for evidence to help it decide whether costs protection should be extended to non-employment discrimination claims. Qualified One-Way Costs shifting (QOCS), if eventually introduced, should mean that even if the claim goes outside the Small Claims Track, a claimant who loses only has to pay the winning party’s costs in very limited circumstances. More: Costs protection in non-employment discrimination claims.
Asking questions
Asking questions can be very useful to help a claimant decide whether it is worth bringing a case in the first place, and if so how to formulate and present a case most effectively. It may also in some cases encourage a service provider to settle, if answering the questions makes it apparent that the organisation will have difficulty defending the case.
The formal ‘questions procedure’ has been abolished, but one can still ask questions. See Proving discrimination: Asking questions. As outlined at that link, apart from asking questions generally there is a legal right to ask for personal data under the GDPR, and sometimes it is possible to use a Freedom of Information Act request for non-personal data.
The Government Equalities Office has issued guidance on asking questions of service providers and public authorities: Asking and responding to questions of discrimination in the provision of goods and services and public functions (gov.uk), 2014.
Victimisation
There are rules against victimisation to help protect someone from being ‘punished’ for making or being involved in a discrimination claim.
Remedies
Compensatory payment
Where there is a breach of the Equality Act, the main legal remedy is money compensation. Most or all of the compensation is normally for ‘injury to feelings’ (s.119(4) EqA).
Compensation from service providers etc for injury to feelings should probably be assessed on the same basis as from employers in EqA employment claims (Purves v Joydisc, below, a Scottish decision, which English courts are likely to follow on this).
Accordingly, in setting compensation for injury to feelings, County Courts seem to follow the ‘Vento bands’ developed in employment cases. The band for less serious cases is £1,200 to £11,700 (see minimum below), as at November 2024. There are middle and higher bands above that. (On Ombudsmen and the Vento guidelines, see above Level of compensation by Ombudsman: Vento guidelines.)
County Courts should probably also follow the other principles applicable to injury to feelings compensation in employment cases. In particular, it seems the court should focus on the impact on the claimant, which will vary depending on the individual, rather than on the gravity of the discriminatory act as such.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published guidance: How to work out the value of a discrimination claim: A guide to quantifying discrimination claims in access to services cases (EHRC website).
It can be seen that under the Vento bands, the minimum award for injury to feelings should be about £1,200. The Court of Appeal said in Vento, §65: “In general, awards of less than [what is now £1,200] are to be avoided altogether, as they risk being regarded as so low as not to be a proper recognition of injury to feelings.” See further Remedies in employment disputes: Compensation and recommendations> Vento bands: Minimum award.
For some examples, see below Examples of cases on compensation.
If you do not want compensation yourself, you could consider asking the service provider to make a donation of an agreed amount to charity. (Please consider STAMMA, the British Stammering Association: www.stamma.org). Whilst a donation to charity is not something the legislation provides for, YOU might say you are only willing to give up your Equality Act rights if the charitable donation (of £x) is made.
There is brief information in paragraphs 14.54-55 of the Services Code and paragraphs 15.40-43 of the Technical guidance on further and higher education on the possibility of aggravated or exemplary damages in England and Wales. (See also on my employment remedies page: Aggravated or exemplary damages).
On compensation for unintentional indirect discrimination, see Indirect discrimination>Compensation.
Injunctions
In the Royal Bank of Scotland case (below), 2009, as well as a compensation payment, an injunction was awarded requiring the bank to take steps to remedy the lack of disabled access. Similarly Lawson v Clemitshaw (pdf, reasonableaccess.org.uk), 2020.
It may perhaps also be possible to get an interim relief injunction to require a service provider to make a reasonable adjustment before an event, to accommodate disabled customers. See Little Mix concert: case on BSL interpreters>Would the court have issued an injunction (interim relief) before the concert?
Apology, and changing the organisation
You might also (or instead) want a letter of apology, and perhaps an assurance that things will change within the organisation, eg through better staff training.
The British Stammering Association may also be able to help improve the awareness of the orgnisation about stammering (www.stamma.org/get-support/talk-someone).
Examples of cases on compensation
Hosegood v Khalid [2012] EqLR 1114
A wheelchair user was unable to wheel his chair into a restaurant himself, but was forced to accept assistance to get up a step from from the pavement. The County Court only had to consider the amount of compensation, as the restaurant’s defence to the claim had been struck out. The court reviewed various cases and awarded compensation for injury to feelings of £3,000, approximately mid-way in the lowest Vento band. The claimant here strove to be as independent as possible, allowing only his wife to touch his wheelchair, and had been assured by the restaurant on the phone that there was wheelchair access. It was the first time the claimant and his wife had been out for a meal for a year. He was still ‘consumed’ by the incident nearly a year afterwards. The court also awarded £500 by way of aggravated damages “for the insulting and abusive way in which the Defendant responded to the claim and failed to engage with the Claimant or his representative in relation to this incident.”
County court disability discrimination decision (archive of blog.rubensteinpublishing.com)
Royal Bank of Scotland v Allen, Court of Appeal, 2009
A bank was held to be in breach of its duty to make reasonable adjustments, for failing to make one of its branches wheelchair accessible. The case is of particular interest because the court granted an injunction, requiring the bank to install a lift for wheelchair users. The court also awarded the claimant damages of £6,500 for injury to feelings. The facts included a number of failed attempts at access to the bank. Because of the long period of discrimination, and the embarassment caused by the bank, the County Court judge was satisfied that the case fell into the middle band under the Vento principles.
Ross v Ryanair, 2004
Mr Ross was charged for the provision of a wheelchair to get from the check-in point at Stansted airport to the plane. This was held to be unlawful discrimination, and the compensation award included £1000 for injury to feelings. The County Court cited Purves v Joydisc below which had said: “£750 is the least that may now days be awarded for the very slightest injury to feelings, deserving of damages, caused by discrimination on the ground of disability.”
Purves v Joydisc Ltd (bailii.org), Sheriff Court (Sheriff Principal), 2003
This was an appeal in Scotland against an award of £350 for injury to feelings. It was a claim by a blind person whose friend had tried to book a table for a group which included the blind person with his guide dog. The friend was told no dogs were allowed.The Sheriff Principal said there was no binding authority on compensation for injury to feelings caused by unlawful discrimination. However, persuasive guidance could be found in certain English decisions of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, on race discrimination. The Sheriff Principal implicitly rejected the view of the lower court (which had awarded £350) that damages awarded in employment tribunal cases were on a different basis from the present case. The Sheriff Principal explained: “The primary consideration is that, whether the ground of discrimination is race or sex or disability, and whether the context is the field of employment or some other field, a person may suffer injury to his or her feelings as a result.” Also, it would be anomalous if awards for injury to feelings under anti-discrimination statutes applying to both England and Scotland were significantly different north and south of the Border.
The Sheriff Principal applied five principles set out in one of the English race discrimination cases (Armitage), and drew from another (Doshoki) that the sum of £750 was the least that might nowadays be awarded for the very slightest injury to feelings, deserving of damages, which is caused by discrimination on the ground of disability. In the present case, said the Sheriff Principal, the insult and humiliation must be regarded as significantly greater than such a very slight injury. He awarded £1000.
Note: It sounds like the Sheriff Principal may not have been aware of the (English) Court of Appeal decision in Vento two months before, setting out the ‘Vento bands’. See above on current minimum under the Vento bands.
Claiming against individuals and others involved
Employees, agents and others aiding discrimination can be liable as well as the relevant business.
The service provider is responsible for anything done by employees in the course of their employment, or by agents acting within their authority. In the case of discrimination by an employee, the responsible body does have a defence if it took such steps as were reasonably practicable to prevent the actions.
Even if the responsible body has a defence, agents and employees may be personally liable.
There are also rules against people aiding, instructing, causing or inducing discrimination.
For the more on the provisions dealing with these issues, see my page Who is liable under the Equality Act.
