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Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006

The new law came into force on 1^st October 2006 and gives rights to the following:-

 

·                    employees

·                    self-employed people

·                    office holders (eg company directors)

·                    contract workers

·                    job applicants

·                    former employees

·                   people applying for adult, further or higher education, or training

·                    students in adult, further or higher education, or training

·                   former students in adult, further or higher education, or training

 

The new laws will not cover discrimination in goods and services.  This means that insurance companies, health care providers etc will still be able to discriminate on the grounds of age.

 

The Government has said that unpaid volunteers will not be covered by the legislation, but volunteering which is part of a training course will be covered.

 

There are a number of exemptions set out to the new law which mean that in certain circumstances, employers will be able to discriminate on the grounds of age, without having to justify it:

 

·                  any benefit linked to length of service (eg holiday entitlement) will be lawful, but if the length of service required is more that five years, the employer must show that it is expected to meet a business need.  Examples of a business need that may be met could be encouraging loyalty, motivating workers or rewarding experience.

·                    If the length of service required is less than five years, it will automatically be lawful without the employer having to meet the business need test.

 

Recruitment

 

When considering future advertisements avoid specifying any minimum or maximum length of experience required for a particular type of job as this may disadvantage certain age groups.  Also it would be prudent to place the adverts in a cross-section of the media to reach all age groups.

 

Check application forms in use as sections asking for a date of birth or unnecessary employment history should be removed.  Asking for age related information could allow discrimination to take place.  Try to use skill based application forms and monitor the results of your recruitment and selection.  Ensure that any training is open to all and review any policies in place for age bias.  Using last-in first-out to select for redundancy is likely to be discriminatory.

 

Retirement

 

The new law will introduce a default retirement age of 65 (previously there was no national retirement age as it was different to pension age).  The age will be the same for both men and women and employers who force anyone to retire under this age will be open to a claim for age discrimination and for unfair dismissal.

 

It will usually be lawful for an employer to force someone to retire over the age of 65, as long as they follow the correct procedure, but employees will have a new right to request to continue working after the date when the employer wants them to retire.  The employer must give the employee a minimum of six months (and a maximum of twelve months) notice of the intended date of retirement.  At the same time, the employee must tell the employee that they have the right to request to continue working.  Compensation has been set if the notice given is less then six months, with a period of less than two weeks being regarded as unfair dismissal.

 

If the employee makes a request not to retire, the employer has a duty to consider the request (the request must be in writing and should state whether they wish to continue working indefinitely, for a certain period, or to a certain date.  The employer must hold a meeting to discuss the request with the employee within a reasonable time and must notify the employee of the decision as soon as reasonably practicable.  The employee than has a right to an appeal meeting if they are not happy with the decision and to be accompanied at such a meeting by a colleague.  The new right is only a right to request staying on.  The employer can refuse the request and the law does not require the employer to give the reasons for their decision and the only possible challenge to the employer’s decision will be if they have not followed the correct procedure.