Developing people to their full potential
Age of Retirement
04/01/2010
Informed and uninformed commentators seem to at one in expecting employees to need or to be obliged to work beyond the current age for the State Retirement Pension; the reasons being increasing life expectancy and increasing cost of pension provision. In the background is the age discrimination legislation and there could be amendments to this, probably irrespective of what party is in Government after a General Election in 2010.
Clients of MDN Fusion Ltd. probably have formalised terms and conditions that specify a “normal retirement age” – usually 65. This is also the default retirement age in the age discrimination legislation (for employers who do not specify a normal age of retirement). The default age has been subject to legal challenges that have alleged that it does not satisfy the European Directive on age discrimination. All have failed including the most recent in September at the High Court. Nevertheless the Judge’s decision signalled a possible demise of the default age in the longer term “I cannot presently see how 65 could remain as a default retirement age after the [Government’s] review”.
This Review was scheduled for 2011 and has been brought forward to 2010. MDN Fusion suggests that it is important for the Review to receive input from small and medium sized business and charities and not to leave the debate to ‘Big Business’ and partial representative organisations. The Government is looking for evidence including, but not limited to the following:
• The operation of the default retirement age in practice
• The reasons that businesses use mandatory retirement ages
• The impacts (positive and negative) on businesses, individuals, and the economy, of raising or removing the default retirement age
• The experience of businesses operating without a default retirement age
• How could any costs of raising or removing the DRA be mitigated and benefits realised?
Submissions are requested by 1 February 2010 and should be emailed to draevidence@bis.gsi.gov.uk and/or posted to DRA Evidence, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, V497, 1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET.
Although MDN Fusion will await developments, it is timely to remind you:
• Not to stop personal development planning as employees approach retirement
• To facilitate & commend handover of skills and knowledge from employees about to retire
• To consider flexible working applications as employees approach retirement
• To follow the statutory requirements for retirement notification
• To support employees preparing for retirement
• To apply consistent performance and absence requirements & procedures across the whole workforce, regardless of age