Failure to implement university reasonable adjustments

Legal position

Universities in England and Wales are bound by the Equality Act 2010. Disability is a protected characteristic, and where a provision, criterion, practice, physical feature or lack of an auxiliary aid puts a disabled student at a substantial disadvantage compared with non-disabled students, the university is under a positive duty to take reasonable steps to avoid that disadvantage. This is the duty to make reasonable adjustments under sections 20 and 21, and it applies to higher education providers under Part 6 of the Act.

Two points are important. First, the duty is anticipatory and continuing, so the university cannot simply wait for repeated complaints. Second, once adjustments have actually been agreed, for example through a Disabled Students’ Allowance needs assessment, a study support plan, a learning support agreement or a formal written record from the disability service, a failure to put those adjustments into practice is capable of amounting to a failure to comply with the duty. Under section 21, failing to comply with the reasonable adjustments duty is itself unlawful discrimination.

It is worth being precise about what has gone wrong, because different situations lead to different remedies. There is a difference between the university refusing to agree an adjustment, agreeing an adjustment but not communicating it to the relevant staff, individual lecturers or departments not following an agreed plan, and an adjustment being implemented late or only partially. A one-off administrative slip that is corrected quickly may not, on its own, breach the duty. A persistent or systematic failure to deliver adjustments that were formally agreed is far more likely to. The Office of the Independent Adjudicator has upheld complaints where providers acted too slowly or did not implement adjustments effectively enough, and has recommended apologies, compensation for distress and inconvenience, fee cancellation and procedural changes.

Gather your evidence first

Before you escalate anything, assemble a clear record. This is the single most useful thing you can do.

1. The document that records the agreed adjustments, for example the needs assessment report, the student support plan, the learning support agreement or an email confirming what was agreed and by whom.

2. A dated timeline showing what was agreed, when it should have been in place, and each specific occasion when it was not delivered.

3. Copies of emails, messages and any responses from the disability service, module leaders, exam office or department.

4. Evidence of the impact on you, for example missed deadlines, an exam sat without the agreed arrangements, lower marks, or the effect on your health and wellbeing.

Keeping this contemporaneously matters because both internal complaints and any later external route turn heavily on documented facts and dates.

Step one: raise it directly and quickly

Start with the disability or student support service and, where relevant, the specific department or module leader. Put it in writing, set out exactly which agreed adjustment has not been implemented, refer to the document that records the agreement, and ask for it to be put in place by a specific date. Ask them to confirm in writing what they will do and when.

This is not just a courtesy. It creates a record, it often resolves the problem fastest, and both the university’s own complaints process and the OIA expect students to give the provider a genuine opportunity to put things right before escalating.

If an assessment or exam is imminent, flag the urgency explicitly and ask for an interim solution, such as deferral, an alternative arrangement, or mitigating circumstances being recorded, so that you are not disadvantaged while the underlying problem is sorted out.

Step two: use the formal complaints procedure

If the direct approach does not fix it, use the university’s formal student complaints procedure. Every university publishes one, usually in stages, moving from informal resolution to a formal written complaint and then to a review stage. Follow the stages in order and keep to the internal deadlines, because missing them can prejudice a later external complaint.

In your formal complaint, be specific. Identify the adjustments that were agreed, the source document, the dates they were not delivered, the impact, and the outcome you want. Sensible outcomes to ask for include immediate implementation of the adjustments, correction of any academic disadvantage such as re-marking, resitting without penalty, disregarding an affected attempt or applying mitigating circumstances, an apology, compensation for distress and inconvenience, and a commitment to change the process so it does not recur.

You should also consider using the academic appeals or mitigating circumstances procedure in parallel if your marks or progression have already been affected, because the complaints procedure and the academic appeals procedure are usually separate routes with separate deadlines.

Step three: the Office of the Independent Adjudicator

When you have exhausted the internal process, the university must issue a Completion of Procedures letter. That letter is your gateway to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, the free independent complaints scheme for students at higher education providers in England and Wales. You generally have twelve months from the date of the Completion of Procedures letter to bring your complaint to the OIA, so do not sit on it.

The OIA looks at whether the provider acted reasonably and in line with its own procedures and its legal obligations, including the Equality Act duty to make reasonable adjustments. It cannot make a binding finding that the law was breached in the way a court can, but it can and does uphold complaints about failures to make adjustments and recommends practical remedies. As the published case summaries show, these have included apologies, compensation of a few thousand pounds for distress and inconvenience, cancellation of tuition fees, and requirements that the provider review and document its procedures. OIA recommendations are effectively binding on member providers.

The court route under the Equality Act

A failure to make reasonable adjustments by a higher education provider is unlawful discrimination and can be pursued as a civil claim in the County Court under the Equality Act 2010. The court can award damages, including for injury to feelings, and can grant declarations and injunctions.

Two things are critical here. First, the time limit is short. A claim must normally be brought within six months of the act complained of, though the court has discretion to extend where it is just and equitable, and a continuing failure may be treated as extending the period. Second, using the internal complaints procedure and the OIA does not pause this six-month clock. This is a common trap: students exhaust the internal and OIA routes and then find the court limit has expired. If you are considering court action, you may need to protect the deadline even while other routes are ongoing.

The court and the OIA are alternatives in practice, and you would need to weigh cost, stress, time and litigation risk. The OIA is free, informal and lower risk. Court proceedings can achieve a binding legal finding and potentially larger damages, but carry cost risk and formality. You cannot generally use the OIA for something that has already been the subject of court proceedings.

Other useful levers

If the university is a member of a scheme or has made public commitments on disability support, or has an access and participation plan, non-compliance can be a useful point in a complaint. You can also raise systemic concerns with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which enforces the Equality Act, although it deals with strategic and systemic issues rather than resolving individual disputes.

If your funding or support involves Disabled Students’ Allowance, keep the needs assessment provider and Student Finance England informed, as they can sometimes assist in getting agreed support delivered.

How the facts change the answer

The strength of your position depends on details that are not yet clear from your question. If the adjustments were formally agreed and recorded, and were then simply not delivered over a sustained period causing you real disadvantage, you have a strong complaint and potentially a strong Equality Act claim. If what was agreed is ambiguous, or the university took some reasonable steps but not exactly what you expected, or the failure was brief and promptly corrected, the position is weaker and the focus shifts to what was reasonable in the circumstances.

It also matters whether your academic outcomes have actually been affected. If they have, act quickly through mitigating circumstances and academic appeals so that the harm can still be reversed, rather than relying only on compensation later. If the adjustments are still needed for ongoing study, prioritise getting them implemented now, in parallel with any complaint about past failures.

Practical next steps

1. Pull together the agreement document, a dated timeline and the evidence of impact.

2. Write to the disability service and the relevant department now, quoting the agreed adjustments and asking for implementation by a set date.

3. If your studies or an assessment are affected, immediately lodge mitigating circumstances or an academic appeal in parallel.

4. If it is not resolved, submit a formal complaint through the university’s complaints procedure and follow the stages within their deadlines.

5. On receiving the Completion of Procedures letter, consider the OIA within twelve months.

6. If you may want a binding legal remedy and damages, be alert to the six-month Equality Act limit, which runs independently of the complaints and OIA process, and take steps to protect it.

Free specialist support is available from Citizens Advice, and from Disability Rights UK and disabled students’ advice services, and your students’ union advice centre can usually help you draft complaints and appeals and understand the internal deadlines.