Default retirement age now to be reviewed in 2010

Under the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 it is lawful to require staff to retire at 65 if the employer follows the statutory procedure. The regulations give employees the right to request working beyond retirement age‚ but although employers have a duty to consider these requests‚ they need offer no justification for refusal. When introduced a review was set for 2011.

The legality of the current situation has been challenged, notably by Age Concern and Help the Aged in the “Heyday” case which began in 2006. In March this year the European Court of Justice ruled that a default retirement age does not contravene the EU directive on equal treatment. However the measure must be objectively justified as “a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”.

Tomorrow the UK government must demonstrate in the High Court how the default retirement age meets this test to achieve its social or employment policy objectives.

Age Concern and Help the Aged welcomed the decision to bring forward the review by a year as ‘a step in the right direction’ but called for an immediate end to ‘an arbitrary and unfair rule which stops people from working, simply because of their age’. The CIPD applauded the decision, describing the maintenance of the default retirement age as ‘unsustainable’ in the present economic situation.

However Katja Hall director of Employment Policy at the CBI commented, “No-one has yet suggested a workable alternative to the default retirement age.”

The Heyday judgment is unlikely to be known until the autumn.