April 2011 has been a busy time for employment solicitors. They have been advising their clients on all the reforms that are being implemented this month. However, 6 April is a particularly busy day as a number of important reforms come into force at once.
Firstly, the statutory default retirement age has been scrapped. Employers are no longer allowed to retire an employee simply because they have turned 65. Under the old system, employers could decide to forcibly retire employees who were getting on in age by giving them notice of their retirement six months before their 65th birthday.
However, the coalition government decided that retiring employees at 65 was depriving them of the opportunity to continue working if they so wished. The government found many people want to continue working as they are not ready for retirement or wish to build up their pension pot. In addition, the government believes that by allowing to people to work for longer, they can help the economy to recover from its recent troubles.
If an employer has already given an employee notice of their retirement at 65 under the old regime, this will be valid as long as the notice was given before or on 5 April 2011 and the employee is due to turn 65 by 30 September 2011. Employers cannot give any further retirement notices under the now defunct statutory default retirement age rules.
Of course, there is an exception. If an employer can ‘objectively justify’ forcing an employee to retire at a certain age, they will be able to do so. An ‘objective justification’ is a legitimate and proportionate business aim that requires an otherwise unlawful action to be taken.
Secondly, positive action in promotion and recruitment provisions contained in the Equality Act 2010 come into force on 6 April. These provisions make it possible for an employer to favour minorities or under-represented groups in their workforce when presented with two candidates who are equally qualified during recruitment or promotion situations.
Positive action is not to be confused with positive discrimination. Positive discrimination involves favouring a person solely because of a protected characteristic, such as race, gender, disability etc. Positive discrimination is unlawful under UK employment law and the introduction of the positive action regulations does not change this.
The third important change being implemented on 6 April is the introduction of the new Equality Codes of Practice. The Codes are being issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission under the Equality Act 2010. The Codes consist of three separate codes on pay, employment and services. The statutory Codes will set the benchmark for best practice and Employment Tribunals will look at employer compliance when deciding claims relevant to the Act. This is good news for employees as it means employers will be advised by their solicitors to follow the Codes closely.
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