We’re a Disability Confident Committed employer

Disability Confident is a government scheme that encourages employers to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people in an inclusive and accessible way.  

The scheme has three levels designed to support employers in their Disability Confident journey.  

By signing up to the scheme, we’ve made several commitments to support disabled people, including that we will: 

• Provide an inclusive and accessible recruitment process. 
• Offer interviews to disabled people by ringfencing a minimum number of interview slots for disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for a role. 
• Provide reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process. 
• Support our disabled employees to thrive, including through making reasonable adjustments. 

We ringfence a minimum number of interview slots for candidates who apply via the Disability Confident scheme and meet the minimum criteria for a role. 

The minimum criteria for a role are the ‘essential’ criteria outlined in the job description, unless we specify otherwise. 

Disabled applicants can opt into the scheme by ticking the relevant box on the online application form. Applicants don’t have to be ‘registered’ as a disabled person to qualify for this scheme and don’t have to share any details about their disability/health condition.  

Due to high volumes of applications, it’s often not possible for us to interview all Disability Confident candidates who meet the minimum criteria for the role.

Where there are more eligible Disability Confident candidates than there are ringfenced interview slots, we’ll invite to interview the disabled candidates who best meet the essential criteria.  

If a Disability Confident candidate is one of the top scoring candidates out of all applicants, they’re automatically invited to interview and don’t count towards the ringfenced slots.

The ringfenced interview slots are for Disability Confident candidates that meet the minimum criteria for a role but would not otherwise be invited to interview. This is in recognition of the many barriers that disabled people can face when applying for jobs. 

Under the Equality Act 2010 (Disability Discriminiation Act 1995 in Northern Ireland), a person is disabled and/or has a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial, long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out day-to-day activities. This can include people with experiences of: 

The scheme aligns with our existing commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion (D&I) and will help us continue to deliver our D&I strategy. 

Signing up to the scheme is also part of our wider efforts to make our recruitment policies and practices more inclusive, accessible and equitable. This is so that we can attract and appoint a more diverse range of people to our roles, including disabled people. This is crucial to achieve our ambitious mission of addressing the climate emergency for everyone. 

Employers like Energy Saving Trust are legally obliged to make reasonable adjustments for employees and candidates. This ensures that disabled people, or people with physical or mental health conditions, aren’t substantially disadvantaged when applying for or carrying out a job. 

A reasonable adjustment is a change to a process, practice, procedure or environment that helps remove, reduce or prevent the obstacles faced by a disabled job applicant or worker.  

Reasonable adjustments are a legal obligation. But they’re also part of our organisational commitment to becoming a more inclusive and accessible Disability Confident employer. 

We encourage applicants to request reasonable adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. You don’t need to share the name or details of your condition/disability to do so. 

Examples of adjustments could be providing:

• Alternative accessible formats. 
• The opportunity for a candidate to present their application form or assessment responses in an alternative format, eg verbally rather than in writing or vice versa. 
• Extra time in an interview and/or assessments. 
• Time for more regular breaks. 
• A sign language interpreter or other communication support at interview. 
• A specific time of day for an interview to work around a candidate’s needs. 
• Interview questions in written format, sometimes in advance.   
• A different location or environment for an interview, if in person. 

If you think you may need support or adjustments made to any part of the application or recruitment process, please get in touch with recruitment@est.org.uk or call reception on 020 7222 0101. We’ll do our best to support you.  

Learn more about the government’s Disability Confident scheme here. 

If you have any questions, please get in touch by emailing our People Team or call reception on 020 7222 0101.