By Ceri Fuller, Sara Meyer, and Hilary Larter
|Published 05 November 2026
In this case, the EAT upheld an employment tribunal's decision that a Council did not breach its duty to make reasonable adjustments by declining to alter the format of its interview questions to ask only "yes or no" questions, as requested by a candidate who has autism and dyslexia. However, the EAT held that the tribunal erred in accepting evidence based on an interviewer's neurotypical assumptions about the candidate's stress levels during the interview.
The claimant, Mr Bryce, applied and interviewed unsuccessfully for a team manager role with Coventry City Council (the Council). Mr Bryce has what he refers to as Asperger’s Syndrome and dyslexia, which the Council accepted were disabilities. He requested adjustments to the recruitment process, including extra time to provide examples of how he met the job criteria. The Council made some adjustments: it provided the questions 24 minutes before the interview and the interviewers agreed at the outset to remind Mr Bryce of different parts of a question and rephrase any he misunderstood to refocus him. There were eight candidates for two roles. Mr Bryce scored 24 points. The successful candidates scored 51 and 61 points.
Mr Bryce brought unsuccessful disability discrimination claims in the employment tribunal. He identified one provision criterion or practice (the PCP) of ‘providing candidates with a certain amount of time to provide examples of how they met the job criteria’. He alleged that the Council had breached its reasonable adjustments duty by not asking only ‘closed’ questions, requiring 'yes' or 'no' answers regarding his experience for the job. The tribunal found that the proposed adjustment concerned how questions were put, rather than the disadvantage caused by the PCP. The tribunal further found that the Council had made an adjustment in respect of the PCP, as the questions asked satisfied the National Autistic Society's guidance on open and closed questions, and Mr Bryce's proposed adjustment of asking only 'yes' or 'no' questions was not reasonable.
Mr Bryce also claimed discrimination arising from disability under section 15 of the Equality Act 2010 (the Section 15 claim). The three "somethings" he said caused his unfavourable treatment were: i) difficulties communicating effectively (including misinterpreting questions and therefore answering incorrectly); ii) difficulties remembering, so he struggled to recount examples on the spot; and iii) stress in new situations such as meeting new people in job interviews. The tribunal found that while Mr Bryce could not give satisfactory examples of required skills, including ‘ability to communicate’ and ‘empathy’, he had not in fact been stressed in the interview and so had not been treated unfavourably because of something arising in consequence of disability.
Mr Bryce appealed to the EAT on both claims.
The EAT upheld the tribunal's finding that the Council had not breached the duty to make reasonable adjustments. The tribunal had erred in finding that the form of the questions was not ‘connected to’ the disadvantage arising from the PCP, as the nature of a question could self-evidently influence the speed with which it could be addressed. However, the tribunal did not err in deciding that the Council had in fact made reasonable adjustments.
Mr Bryce's appeal on the Section 15 claim succeeded in part. He argued that the tribunal's acceptance that he experienced stress in new situations, such as interviews, was inconsistent with its apparent conclusion that stress had not affected his performance in this interview. The EAT found that the tribunal had erred by accepting an interviewer's evidence that was in part based on his observations of neurotypical behaviour. This concerned Mr Bryce's decision not to share his screen when asked to deliver the presentation part of the interview. The interviewer's evidence was that people who are stressed might do things that they did not want to do. The tribunal had not considered whether someone with Mr Bryce's disabilities would manifest stress in the same ways as a neurotypical person. The EAT held that the tribunal could not prefer the conclusions of an interviewer with no expertise in Mr Bryce's conditions, mental state or experience of interviews. The EAT found in the alternative that if the tribunal’s conclusion was that Mr Bryce was stressed but this did not materially affect his interview performance, it had not given adequate reasons to explain that conclusion.
The case was remitted to a new tribunal to consider the Section 15 claim afresh.
This case is a useful reminder that employers must make reasonable adjustments to alleviate a particular disadvantage suffered by a job applicant or employee during a recruitment process. The duty does not extend to making any adjustment requested. Managers must be ready to discuss reasonable adjustments with candidates at the start of interviews when carrying out recruitment exercises, so training managers on how to respond is vital.
While Section 15 claims are usually won or lost on justification arguments, this case did not get that far. Instead the focus was on whether the claimant suffered stress during the interview as a result of something arising from his disability. Employers interviewing neurodiverse candidates must show they have considered the impact of their conditions, and not assume that they are impacted in the same way as neurotypical candidates.
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