The first employment tribunal ruling on positive action poses problems for employers, says Paul McFarlane
- Interpreting positive action provisions.
- Who is best placed to decide who is, and who is not, qualified to perform a role?
In the first decided case on the use of positive action provisions under s 159 Equality Act 2010, an employment tribunal has unanimously found that a police force’s recruitment process directly discriminated against a white, heterosexual, male applicant.
The claimant Mr Furlong, a white heterosexual male without a disability, applied for a position as a Police Constable in the 2017–18 recruitment process with the respondent, Cheshire Constabulary.
The recruitment process comprised three stages; an application form to check candidate eligibility; a ‘sift’ stage comprising a competency interview and various written and interactive exercises; and, finally, an interview stage for all candidates who had successfully passed the ‘sift’. In 2017–18, a large cohort of 127 candidates progressed to interview. At this final stage, the respondent applied ‘positive action’ appointing first any candidates with protected characteristics before selecting from the pool of remaining applicants.
Despite
