Friday 7 March 2014

Acas Guide to Discrimination Questionnaires

Statutory questionnaires are being abolished in discrimination cases with effect from 6th April 2014 (here's the statutory instrument).

Acas has produced some useful new guidance on asking and responding to questions of discrimination in the workplace.  The statutory right to draw an adverse inference if replies are evasive or equivocal has gone (not that it did much anyway), but as a matter of common sense if an employer unreasonably fails to provide accurate answers to informal questions, the tribunal might rely on that to draw an adverse inference anyway.

(And in case that's unclear, my view is the abolition of statutory questionnaires will make not a jot of difference in the real world).

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