Oops!

Age discrimination is we are told going to be a growth area of discrimination in the future. One area where no growth was expected was recruitment over the NRA (normal retirement age) because there is a cut off of not having to recruit people who are above NRA (see ADR Regs 7( 1)(a) + (c) & (4)).

What many people have not realised is that if you actually recruit someone who is over your NRA and then try to dismiss them you ARE going to face problems. You could of course go down the retirement route of giving notice but this takes time. But what if you recruited someone by mistake not realising that they were over your normal age of retirement?

This is the problem facing one of my clients and I am not sure there is an easy answer. It seems to me that the dismissal will need to be justified and simply stating that the employee is over your NRA may not be enough. This may not be a problem that is likely to arise on a regular basis but it is a conundrum that I am presently working on and I have not yet found a wholly satisfactory answer for the employer.

Peter D