As of 1st October 2006, British and Northern Irish law prohibits age discrimination and gives a remedy in the employment tribunals to victims, who could potentially be awarded unlimited compensation.
Below is are extracts from EEF's publication "Avoiding Age Discrimination: A Practical Guide to Managing a Changing Workforce".
As an EEF member, you will have received your free paper copy from your Association. This publication is free to download for EEF members, or multiple copies can be bought at a member discount of £40. See here for details.
Recruitment
Age discrimination is unlawful throughout the entire recruitment process. Eliminating potentially age discriminatory language and attitudes in your recruitment practices will not only reduce the risk of an age discrimination claim, but will also help to encourage older applicants and ensure that you are recruiting from the widest pool. Remember, the age profile of the UK workforce is changing so that, increasingly, your applicants are likely to be older workers.
What the law says
The Regulations impact in the area of recruitment by making the following practices unlawful unless they can be justified:
Graduate recruitment
Although there is no age limit for entrance to university, the vast majority of recent graduates will be in their early twenties and so graduate recruitment practices will inevitably be targeted at younger candidates. This means that you will have to justify your approach, if challenged. This may not be difficult where the job requires certain minimum levels of expertise or ability.
Remember the approach that ACAS recommends and assess whether a degree qualification is required. For example, would relevant experience be sufficient? Also, consider whether it is really necessary for the candidate to be a ‘recent’ graduate (this is likely to depend on the actual skills needed for the job).
Ideally, you should not exclude candidates from sources other than universities. The ACAS guidance states that employers who operate ‘milk round’ recruitment should consider enhancing the programme with ‘a broader recruitment strategy, using other avenues to capture a wider pool of applicants of differing ages’. If you set a low maximum age in relation to your graduate recruitment and development programme, you will exclude a signifi cant part of the talent pool −about 10 per cent of entrants on degree programmes are over 25 at the start of the programme. It will not be possible to justify doing so if it is the degree qualification alone that is necessary and not the candidate’s age.
Apprentices
Apprentices are most often young. However, it is difficult to see how an employer could justify limiting its apprenticeship programmes to candidates under a certain age. Increasingly, companies are opening up their apprentice routes to older workers to meet skills shortages. For example, British Gas’s ‘adult traineeship scheme’ had 1,200 trainees in 2003.
Of course, the main obstacle to operating a policy of recruiting apprentices of all ages is where funding is available only when the apprentice is of a particular age. For example, the Advanced Apprenticeship in Engineering Scheme attracts funding only where the apprentice is aged between 16 and 24 years.
Not taking advantage of the available funding may make the apprenticeship scheme economically unviable. In these circumstances, we think that you could justify limiting the scheme to those who qualify for funding.
The Regulations contain a special defence which applies where possessing a characteristic related to age is a ‘genuine and determining occupational requirement’ (GOR) (see Appendix 1 of "Avoiding Age Discrimination"). Whilst, traditionally, apprentices are school leavers who are starting out on their vocational careers, we do not think that it is a GOR to be a recent school leaver or young person to be an apprentice. In our view, this would not be a defence to imposing such a requirement on apprenticeship schemes.
Text added 11 September 2006