Lancaster University recognises the importance of providing reasonable adjustments to employees with visible and invisible disabilities. These reasonable adjustments can take many forms and should be tailored to the individual's needs.
Our Reasonable Adjustment Passport is a formal, living document of these adjustments that ensures staff feel supported from across their team, and wider.
For ease of reading, the acronym 'RAP' will be used throughout this page.
The Equality Act (2010) defines disability as:
“a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities”.
‘Substantial’ here means that the effect of the impairment or disability is more than trivial. For example, it may take someone who is disabled much longer than a non-disabled individual to get dressed, or it may be that they have specific access needs e.g. transcripts of meetings, as without those it may be impossible or take much longer than it would a non-disabled individual to understand the information.
‘Long term’ is ordinarily understood to mean that the effects of the impairment are expected to last 12 months or more. There are notable exceptions to this – individuals who are diagnosed with conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS), HIV/AIDS, and cancer, are legally considered disabled immediately upon receiving their diagnosis, irrespective of how long their symptoms or illness have been going on.
The Equality Act (2010) states that employers must make reasonable adjustments for disabled individuals which remove any substantial disadvantage or difficulties that they may face in the workplace, as a result of their disability, insofar as possible.
Lancaster University recognises that individuals with both visible and invisible disabilities might require changes to their working practices to remove such substantial disadvantages.
Reasonable adjustments can take many forms, and it is often the case that the disabled individual is the best source of information regarding what adjustments or changes to their working practices would best remove any barriers they face and would ensure they feel supported at work and able to carry out their role without negative effects or impacts on their health.
Lancaster University supports employees with disabilities by providing tools such as the Reasonable Adjustment Passport, which formally documents existing adjustments for individuals.
Disabled individuals are often the best source of information regarding supportive measures that would remove barriers they face and allow them to perform their role without negative impacts on health. There is no exhaustive list of potential adjustments available, however reasonable adjustments should be agreed with the individual to have a positive impact on their health and wellbeing at work.
Critically, the creation of an employee's Reasonable Adjustment Passport is led by the employee, in partnership with their line manager. By empowering our staff to have open and honest conversations with their leadership, we aim to begin breaking down barriers and removing worries that many of our disabled colleagues may experience.
Any new or existing member of staff at the University can request a Reasonable Adjustment Passport, if they are disabled, become disabled, or have a long-term health condition which requires adjustments to their working practices in order to allow them to safely and comfortably carry out their role.
The RAP asks employees for information regarding their disability/health condition(s), including details of formal diagnoses and specialist assessments that they may have. Any information provided here, along with the contents of the RAP are strictly confidential, unless you, as the employee, give written consent to share that information with HR Teams or Occupational Health providers.
If you wish to complete an RAP, let your line manager know and you can begin the process.
"Lancaster University is wholeheartedly committed to creating workplaces that allow everyone to participate in full without fear of repercussion or discrimination.
Inclusion in the workplace can often be difficult to discuss, particularly for those long-term members of staff who are now realising what adjustments may benefit them.
As a university we need to open up the floor to conversations about inclusion for all of our staff in everything that we do."
Professor Andy Schofield, Vice-Chancellor
If you are a staff member on any type of contract with Lancaster University, you are able to request a Reasonable Adjustment Passport with your line manager.
This includes Casual, Fixed Term and Indefinite contracts, Paid Postgraduate Teaching or Research contracts, across all faculties and departments.
For students at the university, you can speak with the Student Wellbeing Partnership Service; to explore the support they are able to offer, including Independent Learning Support Plans (ILSPs).
No.
The RAP is designed to act as a pre-cursor to Occupational Health (OH), where appropriate. If the adjustments you require can reasonably be managed by your team (with support from their HR Partner where necessary, and with consent), then you can use a Reasonable Adjustment Passport.
If the university requires a more detailed assessment to be carried out by an OH team, then a referral should be made.
If you already have, or are currently going through, an OH consultation, you do NOT need to complete a Reasonable Adjustment Passport, unless a new condition arises that you would prefer to manage separately.
For example, A wheelchair user with undiagnosed ADHD may wish to use an RAP to manage their ADHD symptoms, while the OH referral will manage their physical accessibility adjustments.
Yes.
You do not need to create a new RAP each time you move a role, but it would be worth having a meeting with your new line manager to assess whether all the existing adjustments can still be made.
No.
The Risk Assessments required for your role(s) are more complex and in-depth.
It might be appropriate for you to complete a RAP with your line manager for any elements which are NOT covered by your Risk Assessment(s), such as email etiquette, time management, personal organisation, or enabling digital accessibility features in online meetings.
Flexible Working requests should still be managed through the university's existing Flexible Working policies (available in the Pay, Recognition and Reward section on the staff intranet).
If the request for reasonable adjustments involves the bringing of an assistance dog to campus, this can be requested via the RAP, but the agreement of this is contingent and based upon appropriate training and assessment of the dog, as well as discussion with HR and Health and Safety colleagues to ascertain any risks to individuals, animals, colleagues, or other students.
Where a request is made for an assistance dog, you must complete the ‘Request for Assistance Dog on University Premises (STAFF)’ form, in addition to the RAP, which is found in the appendices of the University Arrangement for the Management of Assistance Dogs.
The reason that these requests cannot be agreed between you and your line manager alone is to ensure thorough and detailed assessment of risks, and assurances of the safety both of and for the assistance dog whilst on campus.
No, the university will not have any record of your completion of an RAP, unless you or your line manager (with your consent) have contacted your team’s HR representative.
To enable People and Organisational Effectiveness to track the uptake of the RAP, you may wish to complete the additional section on HR Self-Service, which asks 2 questions:
This is completely optional and does not impact the implementation of your RAP. No further information will be directly requested of you from any university team regarding your RAP.
Yes. Simply request your line manager to review and update your existing RAP.
We recommend that a review is carried out yearly, though if it is appropriate to review more regularly, then you can make that decision with your line manager.
The EDI Team are available to provide general advice for both the employee and the line manager. If specific advice is required regarding a particular employee, line managers should contact their HR Partner/Advisor.
Casual discussions surrounding the process can be arranged with the EDI Team, for employees or line managers, to support the completion of the document and questions surrounding it. Alternatively, questions can be sent to the below email address and will be responded to within 5 working days.
The EDI Team are not to be included in any communications containing confidential information.
The EDI Team: edi@lancaster.ac.uk
For further advice, you or your line manager can contact:
Creation of the RAP arose following an EDI Stakeholders Engagement Forum and through discussions with our staffs' Trade Union representatives. Development and creation have been managed in partnership between the EDI Team, and our university HR Partners.
Throughout the creation process, we have regularly consulted our Staff Networks, Trade Union representatives, and internal and external stakeholders.
Yes. This is an excellent tool to enable discussions between employees and their line managers about how the symptoms of menopause may be affecting their experience at work.
For more information surrounding Menopause at work, you may want to explore our Menopause Guidance and eLearning course.
