If you have a disability or long‑term health condition and work in the Civil Service, you may feel that the system designed to support you sometimes works against you. Strict sickness triggers, performance targets and organisational pressures can collide with fluctuating symptoms, medical appointments and fatigue.

This guide is for disabled civil servants and those with long‑term health conditions in England and Wales—including DWP work coaches, decision makers, Jobcentre staff, caseworkers in the Home Office and HMRC, operational staff in MoJ, and corporate teams in HR, finance and IT.

We look at:

• How attendance triggers and capability procedures work in practice

• What “reasonable adjustments” can (and should) look like

• Why DWP’s record in disability discrimination cases has been described as a paradox

It is not tailored legal advice, but it should help you read your policies and correspondence with more confidence.

The DWP disability paradox: why this topic matters

Analysis reported by outlets such as the Big Issue and Good Jobs First suggests the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has, in recent years, lost more employment tribunal cases involving disability discrimination than any other UK employer.

This is striking because DWP is responsible for:

• Administering disability benefits and assessments

• Promoting equality and inclusion initiatives for disabled people

The “paradox” is that the same department tasked with supporting disabled citizens has faced repeated findings that it has discriminated against its own disabled staff.

While the data focuses on DWP, similar pressures and policies exist across the wider Civil Service. That makes this a useful lens for anyone working in:

• Jobcentres and benefit processing centres

• Policy and operational teams in other departments

• Corporate services like HR, IT, finance and estates
  
  
  

Attendance management and sickness triggers in the Civil Service

Most Civil Service departments use some form of attendance management policy with defined trigger points, for example:

• A certain number of days of sickness in a rolling period

• A certain number of separate sickness occasions

• In some cases, a scoring system like the Bradford Factor, which weighs frequent short absences heavily

When you reach a trigger, your manager is usually required to:

• Hold a formal review meeting

• Consider the reasons for your absence

• Decide whether to issue warnings, set improvement targets, or refer to occupational health

The problem for disabled staff is that:

• Disability‑related absence can be unpredictable and recurring

• Policies written with short‑term, one‑off illness in mind can become blunt instruments

• Without adjustments, disabled staff hit triggers more often, even when they are doing everything reasonably possible to manage their condition

This is where the duty to make reasonable adjustments becomes central.

Reasonable adjustments to attendance triggers and targets

Under the Equality Act 2010, employers must make reasonable adjustments to policies, practices or physical features that put disabled people at a substantial disadvantage compared with non‑disabled people.

In the context of attendance management, reasonable adjustments might include:

• Raising or modifying trigger points for someone with a known, fluctuating condition

• Ignoring or discounting certain disability‑related absences for the purpose of formal warnings

• Allowing more flexible working hours or partial home‑working to reduce fatigue or pain

• Adjusting targets or caseloads to reflect medical limitations

Red flags that adjustments may not be happening properly include:

• Managers insisting “the policy must be applied the same to everyone”

• Occupational health recommendations being ignored or only partially implemented

• Disabled staff being disciplined for hitting triggers largely driven by their condition

Tribunals often look at whether the employer genuinely engaged with possible adjustments, or simply treated disability‑related absence as ordinary misconduct or poor performance.

Capability procedures and occupational health

Where absence or reduced performance continues, departments may move into capability procedures. For disabled staff, this should be approached with particular care.

Key questions:

• Has the department obtained and shared appropriate occupational health advice?

• Have all reasonable adjustments been tried and monitored?

• Are managers separating disability‑related limitations from other performance issues?

In capability processes, outcomes can include:

• Long‑term adjustments and redeployment to a more suitable role

• Ill‑health retirement (where scheme rules are met)

• Ultimately, dismissal—which may be lawful only if adjustments and alternatives have been properly considered

When disabled staff are moved too quickly from triggers to capability, without genuine exploration of adjustments, the risk of a disability discrimination finding increases.

Bullying, pressure and “civil servant on civil servant” harassment

Beyond formal procedures, culture and behaviour matter.

Common experiences reported by disabled civil servants include:

• Repeated comments suggesting they are "letting the team down" by attending medical appointments or working from home

• Managers questioning the legitimacy of diagnosed conditions

• Pressure to return to full duties before medical advice supports it

Harassment can occur where unwanted conduct related to disability has the purpose or effect of violating dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.

Examples can include:

• Mocking or dismissive comments about aids, adaptations or working patterns

• Overbearing performance management framed as "motivating" but experienced as threatening

Civil servants at all grades—from administrative officers to senior managers—can find themselves both on the receiving end of, and inadvertently contributing to, such cultures. Recognising this is a first step towards change.

Special issues: under 2 years’ service, sick leave and maternity leave

Your formal options depend partly on your length of service and current employment status.

• If you have less than two years’ continuous service, your ability to bring a straight unfair dismissal claim is restricted. However, disability discrimination claims are available from day one, and compensation is uncapped.
  
  
  

• If you are on long‑term sick leave, you should still be kept informed and consulted about decisions affecting your role, and your absence should be managed consistently with both policy and Equality Act duties.
  
  
  

• If you are on maternity leave and disabled, there is a double layer of protection: pregnancy and maternity are protected characteristics in their own right, and adjustments may be required for disability as well.

Understanding these distinctions helps you decide whether to frame concerns as disability discrimination, failure to make reasonable adjustments, harassment, or a combination.

Practical steps if you are disabled and under attendance pressure

If you feel the system is bearing down on you, it can help to move from vague worry to a structured plan.

1. Gather documents and evidence:

   • Attendance records, trigger‑point letters and absence review notes

   • Occupational health reports and GP or consultant letters (where you are comfortable sharing them)

   • Copies of your department’s attendance management, equality and reasonable adjustments policies
     
     
     

2. Clarify your main adjustments:

   • Write down what changes would make your job more manageable (for example, higher triggers, some home‑working, reduced caseload, different hours)

   • Check whether these are supported by medical advice
     
     
     

3. Ask formally for reasonable adjustments:

   • Put your request in writing, referring expressly to the Equality Act 2010

   • Be as specific as possible about the adjustments you are seeking
     
     
     

4. Use your union and internal support routes:

   • Contact your union rep, disability staff network or HR disability lead

   • Consider mediation or facilitated meetings where relationships have become strained
     
     
     

5. Keep a contemporaneous record:

   • Note dates, key comments and actions

   • Save emails and letters in a single, organised place

These steps will not fix everything, but they can improve your position whether you are seeking to stay, redeploy, or—in the last resort—challenge a dismissal.

Using Caira to organise reports, policies and correspondence

When you are exhausted and overwhelmed, reading long policies and medical reports can be almost impossible. That is where a focused tool can help.

Caira is an AI‑powered, privacy‑first legal assistant for people dealing with law and procedure in England and Wales. It can help you:

• Upload attendance letters, trigger‑point calculations, occupational health reports, GP letters, capability correspondence and equality policies as PDFs, Word documents, images or screenshots

• Ask targeted questions like “What adjustments has occupational health actually recommended?” or “Does this letter follow our attendance policy?”

• Generate draft reasonable‑adjustment requests, grievance letters, capability meeting notes or questions for your union rep, so you do not have to start from scratch

• Ask Caira to compare two versions of a policy or occupational health report and highlight what has changed

Behind the scenes, Caira reads both your uploaded documents and a large internal library of more than 10,000 legal and tax documents for England and Wales, then uses generative AI to give tailored explanations.

From a privacy perspective:

• Caira is designed to be privacy‑first—your data is not used to train public AI models

• Your documents are not passed to third‑party human reviewers

You can try Caira with a 14‑day free trial that takes under a minute to start and does not require a credit card. After that it is an affordable, low‑cost subscription—roughly the price of a cheap takeaway each month—at £15/month, available 24/7 on your phone, tablet or laptop.

It will not replace a doctor, union or legal adviser, but it can help you make better use of their time and feel more confident about your position.

If you need more detail, our Civil Service 60% Office Attendance: Flexible may help.

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