Sorry, forgot to say, no his old job doesn't exist any more so he doesn't actually have a job to return to.. . Thanks to everyone for all your advice, it's really helpful.

Hi Atlas, Good point, unfortunately the respondent has had a headcount freeze for many years and doesn't generally take on permanent staff any more unless they're graduates or apprentices... over time, they've migrated the vast majority of their admin and lower grade jobs roles to temporary/agency positions, who they can 'cull' at a moment's notice to cut costs. . They only told OH categorically that they weren't going to find him a job just before Christmas. We've looked for agency vacancies since but they've just run a voluntary redundancy/early retirement program so at the moment there aren't many being advertised. . . He wasn't offered the option of redundancy. I'm not sure if there is an underlying reason for their decision not to? . . Long and short of it is OH wants to go back to work. Since he's been signed fit to work, his employer have done next to nothing towards finding him a position, they've refused to allow him access to vacancies for himself and they've admitted that they have never looked outside of his immediate department for vacancies because they're not prepared to transfer his head to another cost centre (because of the headcount freeze). . . He's been seeing the OHD but until this month he'd never had his abilities formally assessed, despite the OHD's reccomendations that this needed to happen. He's only ever worked for this employer. He's got 25 years service, 15 years until retirement and one of the very few final salary pensions still in existance and he just wants to be allowed to go back to work.

Thanks honeybee x

He's absolutely fit to work!

Yes, the TU reps are helping with the grievance relating to the case, but this is also being unreasonably delayed by the respondent - the grievance hearing was in early February and the appeal date is in May!

Really sorry about lack of paragraphs - I'm new to the forum and can't work out how to add them!

Hi Squaddie, Yes, OH gave them full medical disclosure, he has attended umpteen OHD appointments (9 in the past 12 months I think, at least 5 of those since being signed fit to return to work with medical restrictions). OH has a generous 2 year contractual OSP allowance but he has exhaused his OSP due to the amount of time they have kept him off of work (he has been off sick since Feb 2011, had extensive physical rehabilitation for over a year, was signed fit to work with restrictions by the Respondent's OHD May 2012, OSP period expired Feb 2013). He asked for some of his sick absence to be classed as disability leave (for rehabilitation) to extend his OSP but they refused. They also stated that because the GP signed him "may be fit for work with restrictions", citing the OHD's recommendations as the restrictions, that they are allowed to continue to class his absence as sick leave so are not doing anything wrong by not paying him because the period of his contractual OSP has expired. His employer is a massive company and we can not believe that there has not been a single vacancy that he could have filled over the past 12 months. He was working on a specific short/mid-term task at the time he went off sick and this job role no longer exists so he has no existing role to return to or for them to be considering for reasonable adjustments. He has never asked for a new vacancy to be created, just that he be considered for an existing vacancy within the company. He's offered to work in the post room, reception or in the security lodge, anywhere just to get back to work. He has a case management discussion coming up in a couple of weeks and we just wanted to know if it was reasonable to ask the judge to order the respondent to supply the information we have asked for.

So we can't ask the ET to make an order for them to supply that information, even though it is the only hard evidence that supports the case?

Hi,OH is currently taking his employer to an employment tribunal for disability discrimination. He was deemed fit to work (with restrictions) a year ago by their own OHD and is still employed by them but is not being paid because they are claiming that they are unable to find a position for him that can accommodate his disability. Because he is still employed by the respondent (and wishes to remain so because of his long length of service, high value of occupational pension etc), he can not claim unemployment benefit or secure employment elsewhere but this is causing us enormous hardship. Fortunately I work full time so we can still pay the mortgage and eat but my salary can't stretch to paying for a solicitor to represent him. We tried to get one off legal advice, but all we were told is that we needed more evidence to back up the claim - which we have tried to do. OH served a Prohibited Conduct Questionnaire 8 weeks and a day ago which the company responded to late last night, but rather than the direct questions being answered, throughout the questionnaire they have just referred the reader to the ET3, which naturally is a flat denial of the claim and does not clarify the position or why they have not taken any positive action to keep him in paid work. Without saying too much more, the claim hinges on there having been a vacancy in the last year that he could have been placed into, with our without reasonable adjustments. As he has had no access to details of vacancies in the company for well over a year, on the questionnaire he specifically asked for details of all vacancies, of every employment type (hourly paid, agency and salaried) for the period in question, including roles and responsibilities, to demonstrate whether there was (or was not) a job he could have done. The respondent has flatly refused to supply this information (and other requests of a similar nature) as they claim that there is no relevance to the case and that it is an "unreasonably onerous task" - can we ask the tribunal to order the respondent to supply this information as it is critical to the success of OH's case? Any assistance would be appreciated! Thanks

The thing is, it did affect him substantially for well over a year, but he's so much better now, you'd never know there had been a problem...

Hi, My husband has been off sick for just over 2 years. 10 months ago he was signed 'may be fit to work' with restrictions by his GP and his employer's OHD. However, the company (a huge multi-national) have flatly refused to allow him back to work and say that the restrictions laid out by the OHD make it impossible for them to make reasonable adjustments. He's now on £0 salary as his OSP ceased and his ESA is about to be stopped because when he's assessed by them next week, they'll say he's fit to work, which he is. However for the first 15-18 months of his sick leave he was physically disabled by a Conversion/Dissociative Disorder and suffered symptoms of a catastrophic stroke, which has required months of rehabilitation with speech and language therapists, physios etc. He just filed an ET1 against his company for disability discrimination and failing to make reasonable adjustments under the EqA. But he has an uncommon complaint and I'm wondering if the Equality Act recognise Conversion/Dissociative Disorder as a disability for employment purposes? Grateful for any advice x