Whats amused you (in the news) today ?

Not a good look:

Age UK guilty of discrimination over 58-year-old job applicant

At the time of posting I hadn't actually read the article beyond the headline and the first couple of sentences. 

From what I have read, it isn't a function of the disability law. Rather its an outcome of the Disability Confident Scheme. This is a voluntary scheme but one which the organisation is signed up to. It's that which created the requirement for them to interview if he met the eligibility criteria. 

TBH it looks like Age UK first had a significant slip up, and then hired a JCB and dug themselves a bl**dy great hole to drop themselves in. The latter being courtesy of their "Brand Identity Manager". Now, one fairly glaring question: why on earth was a "Brand Identity Manager" responding to the applicant on what was a recruitment process issue? That in itself speaks volumes. 

Fair do's to the guy in this case. 

A case of rather selective reading I would suggest. Whether due to conscious or unconscious bias I wouldn't dare to assume. 



"The tribunal said that King conducted the review while being “well aware” that concluding that Cubbin met the minimum criteria for the role “would have been embarrassing and awkward”. She would also have been aware, said the tribunal, that the embarrassment could “very conveniently be avoided if the review concluded that he would not have met the essential criteria for the role”."

In other words, the tribunal concluded that whatever King wrote in that post-application review was effectively worthless, as it was written with the objective  of avoiding organisational embarrassment i.e. andthey considered it a case of post-facto justification for the already happened organisational failure. QED it could not be taken as a factual representation of Cubbin's suitability or otherwise. And rather pertinently: 

"Alexander Cubbin sued Age UK after he discovered that owing to an administrative internal blunder his application was never considered before it was rejected."


Which rather reinforces the whole post-facto justification conclusion don't you think ?

Yes we all know that. That was the initial grounds: if he was eligible then he had the right to an interview due to the voluntary scheme they had signed up to. But they didn't interview him, and:

"The charity apologised to Cubbin and told him the person who got the job was 55, but in fact it later emerged that the successful candidate was in their thirties."

Might I suggest that their failure to interview what the tribunal considered an eligible candidate, aged 58, and the process resulted in the job being given to someone in their 30's is what constituted grounds for an age discrimination case. Of course it also seems that they tried to avoid the appearance of a potential age discrimination issue by telling a big fat porkie re. the age of the successful applicant. I know its a bit obvious but...   

I note by the way that you effectively say that because he had mental health disability issues, that would have been grounds for not giving him the job at all. I trust you don't REALLLLY mean that?

Of course the actual grounds for them not giving an interview might have been because of his mental health issues. but then we come full circle back to their signed up commitments under the Disability Confident Scheme.


That might be so, but by this time they had what was clearly a potential discrimination case on their hands, and at the very least a failure of their processes. At this point any sensible individual would have brought in the HR function. Or indeed if the original complaint came in via HR you would have thought they would have felt sensible for them to handle it: with what should be rather a fuller knowledge of both employment law and their procedures / guidance. 

Still, I put it up originally as a funny "ooops" story/headline. I wasn't really expecting to have to dissect an inaccurate analysis of the story. 

Oh,
the relevance is ..... ? I mean, nearly all jobs will have their fair share of incapable applicants. 

In the Us, New Zealand and Weatherspoons, you pay for your fest coffee, then you can have as much as you like for free. I hope that's still true, I thought it was wonderful. And tea should cost 20p.

Fair point. An attacker, with mental issues and not carrying ID. A man would fit the description perfectly.