Third Age Employment Network - Archived News September 2004

There are now 2 dates each year when new employment regulations come into effect. One is the 1st April and the other is the 1st October. The Government says it has done this to make things more straightforward for employers but it hasn’t stopped some from regarding them as ‘Red Tape’ days.

Amendments to the Disability Discrimination Act – which should benefit around 10 million disabled people. The amendments require service providers and businesses to make ‘reasonable’ adjustments to business premises to accommodate disabled people. In addition, small employers will for the first time have the same duties towards disabled staff and job applicants as larger firms. This means not discriminating against employees or potential employees because of their disability.
Changes to the National Minimum Wage – which should benefit up to 2 million low-paid employees. The ‘adult rate’ is increased by 35p to £4.85 an hour, the 18-21 year old rate by 30p to £4.10 and the introduction of a new school leaver minimum rate of £3 an hour.
New dispute resolution regulations – which should potentially benefit all employees. The new regulations set out a basic three-step statutory procedure that should be followed before a case can be heard by an employment tribunal.
New employment tribunal rules - which have been rewritten in plain English to aid user-friendliness, and changes which should improve the system by:
- requiring more information to be provided by claimants and respondents up-front; new "pre-acceptance" procedures, claims and responses that the tribunals are not empowered to deal with; introducing a fixed conciliation period with ACAS (13 weeks for most cases, 7 weeks for simple ones) to promote early settlement where possible

In addition, a revised ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures has also been published. It takes account of the dispute resolution regulations and the changes to the Employment Tribunal System's procedures and sets out for the first time, clear principles on reasonable behaviour for both parties. The revised code also presents advice in a more ‘small-firm-friendly’ way.

AGE (the European Older People’s Platform) are hosting a web debate about age discrimination on the AGE website between 30 September and 15 October.

AGE seeks to stimulate the debate about age discrimination among its members, policy makers, older people themselves, the media and all other stakeholders to express their views on this topic.

During the first week the focus will be on access to employment for older people:

Are older people less productive than people from other age groups ?
Are mandatory retirement ages for pilots, firefighters and other professions really necessary ?
Is it reasonable and effective to lower the employment protection for older employees in order to convince employers to hire more older people?

During the second week, the debate will focus on access to goods and services for older people:

Why should an older person in perfectly good health and aged 76 have to take out travel insurance to travel by train ?
Is it justified to refuse a mortgage to somebody aged 65 ?
Should a health insurance provider be able to require older people to pay more for their premium ?

According to a new research report commissioned by Vodafone UK, 69% of SMEs and corporate leaders agree that companies will fail if they don’t employ diverse workforces.

The ‘Young Guns, Mature Minds’ report finds that three quarters of employers believe they should do more to help young and old people work better together, and encouragingly suggests that employers recognise the benefits to be gained by combining the dynamism of youth with the experience of older employees.

Despite such positive findings, it does reveal conflicts of opinion across a range of issues, illustrating how the views of young people are not necessarily shared by their employers and older colleagues. For example, a disconcerting 66 per cent of employers believe that their customers ‘don’t like dealing with young, inexperienced workers’.

The report puts the research findings into a wider social context, examining the results against trends in demographics and economics. “Our intention with this study is to make an ongoing contribution to the understanding of changing working practices in this country,” says Bill Morrow, CEO of Vodafone UK.

‘Young Guns, Mature Minds’ is the first in a series of reports it has commissioned from Opinion Leader Research. The research, which surveys both employees and employers, suggests that successful teamwork between generations could be the next big issue facing employers seeking to build a harmonious and successful workforce.

A new report on the UK Government’s Ageing and Employment policies by the OECD says employer’s mandatory retirement ages should be abolished in the forthcoming age discrimination legislation – unless they can be objectively justified.
The timing could hardly be more appropriate as it coincides with the first meeting of the taskgroup appointed by the DTI to sort out the impasse on this matter for ministers.

The recommendation is one of several contained in the OECD’s report, some are likely to prove controversial from the Government’s point of view.

The report treads much the same ground as last week’s report from the National Audit Office (see item below) in calling for the labour market prospects of older workers to be improved, but some of its recommendations are more radical. Amongst other things it recommends :-

Moving ahead with the age discrimination legislation and ensuring it is backed by clear enforcement mechanisms with overt sanctions for non-compliance.
Improving co-ordination in skill delivery and strengthening the provision of career guidance for older adults. It refers to the importance of the 10-point action plan contained in our ‘Challenging Age’ research for the DfES.
Making the Work-Based Learning for Adults programme immediately available to older job seekers most in need of help and offering it through Jobcentre Plus.
Improving the delivery and take-up of New Deal 50+ and establishing measurable targets concerning take-up and the subsequent sustained employment outcomes.
Enhancing take-up of the ND50+ Training Grant and giving flexibility to Jobcentre advisers to finance training before participants have got a job and allocating points to JC+ for each grant taken-up.
Increasing effort to reduce the number of people going onto Incapacity Benefit and giving more support to those who are on it, to get back to work.
Considering options to simplify the state pension scheme, improving the basic state pension, re-establishing the ink to prices and basing eligibility on citizenship rather than national insurance contributions.
Increasing state pension age in the longer term in line with increased life expectancy.

A report from Peninsula research says that whilst nearly three quarters of firms are aware there are new dispute resolution rules coming into effect at the start of October, over 9 out of 10 (97%) say they don’t understand their implications.

Lawyers are warning employers to take the legislation seriously. Failure to comply with the new rules could lead to any dismissal being seen as automatically unfair.

With 37,644 claims last year, ‘unfair dismissal’ topped the list of applications to tribunals. In some 60% of instances, the employee has not discussed the matter with their employer prior to lodging the application. From 1st October that will have to change. There are strict new timetables for dispute resolution and more focus on conciliation. The aim is to make employment tribunals the last, rather than first, resort.

The new rules cover dismissals (including redundancy), discipline and grievance.

Hiring confidence amongst employers has helped drive up job prospects across the UK to the highest level for 3 years. Eight of the nine sectors surveyed for Manpower’s Employment Outlook Survey are planning to take on staff in the next 3 months. The only sector expecting a net cutback on jobs is the Agriculture sector. What’s more, employers in all twelve of the regions surveyed intend to take on more staff in the quarter ahead.

Employers in the South West are the most optimistic - with 32% of employers looking to expand their workforce. Employers in the West Midlands, London and Scotland were the least optimistic.

Figures published last week by the Office of National Statistics showed the number of vacancies has grown over the last year. There were 659,000 job vacancies on average in the 3 months ending August 2004, up 73,000 on the same period in 2003.

New research sponsored by Lloyds TSB, found more than 9 out of 10 small businesses in the UK are offering flexible working arrangements to their employees. According to Simon Pegge of Lloyds TSB “Britain’s small firms trade on their flexibility and are increasingly recruiting and retaining staff on the same basis”.

Some 85% of the firms surveyed thought there are valuable benefits to be gained by offering flexible work options to employees.

A newly published report* found that men are more likely to be made redundant than women in many OECD countries. The difference was greatest in the UK where 45% of men’s jobs ended in redundancy compared with 23% for women.

In all the countries studied, people became unemployed mainly because they had lost a previous job they wanted to keep, rather than because they no longer wanted to do the job they had.

* Women Looking for work’ by Ghazala Azmat, Maria Guell and Alan Manning, published in 2004 by the Centre for Economic Performance.

Age discrimination in employment costs the UK economy £31billion a year, there up to a million people aged between 50 and state pension age who are not working but would like to and the Government should be doing more to tackle the barriers faced by older workers. These are just three of the conclusions from a new report* from the National Audit Office (NAO). The report critically reviews the Government’s current welfare-to-work programmes and comes up with nine recommendations.

Setting targets for Government departments and the Regional Development Agencies for the employment and participation rates for older workers and learners.
Aligning the objectives and priorities in respect of improving employability between Jobcentre Plus offices and local Learning and Skills Councils. And collaborating on contracting for employment and training services.
Reviewing the voluntary nature of New Deal 50 Plus, fully evaluating its effectiveness and the impact on participation levels of introducing the Working Tax Credit in April 2003. (see News Item below)
More local Learning & Skills Councils specifically addressing the education and training needs of older people.
Information, Advice and Guidance Partnerships targeting their services on those most likely to benefit from them.
Ensuring that services to improve the employment prospects of older people are based on widely accepted best practice.
Considering whether the DTI’s support for the PRIME over-50s self-employment initiative should be expanded beyond the end of March 2006.

The report reviews and compares the strategies and activities of the Regional Development Agencies in respect of older workers and concludes most could do much better. The East Midlands Development Agency comes out particularly well in the comparison for its championing (and funding) of the Experience Works!
programme.

* The report ‘Welfare to Work: Tackling the Barriers to the Employment of Older People’ can be downloaded from www.nao.gov.uk

In a week when Government ministers have been pushing the positive contribution their New Deal (welfare-to-work) programmes have been making to increasing the number of people in work, its interesting to enquire whatever happened to New Deal 50+?

It seems to be the only one of the New Deal programmes for which no statistics are readily available. All the anecdotal signs are that the number of people helped by the programme has crashed since the Employment Credit originally offered to jobseekers under the scheme was replaced by a Working Tax Credit in April 2003. Perhaps ministers are afraid to admit the change has had disastrous consequences on the take up for this still voluntary scheme.

The National Audit Office (NAO) this week recommended a full economic evaluation be carried out on ND 50+ to assess its effectiveness. According to the NAO the programme has now helped around 120,000 people find work at an estimated cost of £270 million.

The last figures we had – when the figures were published monthly (i.e. back in April 2003) - showed around 98,000 people had been helped. So we are left to conclude that over the past 15-18 months the number has only grown by some 22,000. This represents a reduction of perhaps 40-50% in the numbers being helped on a monthly basis.

The DWP’s ‘Building On New Deal’ proposals will, to all intents and purposes, see the individual New Deal schemes being merged. If we are unable to get figures when it’s a ‘standalone’ scheme, it seems unlikely we’ll get them in future once its absorbed.

We asked ministers to be open-minded about restoring the Employment Credit if it proved the move to the Working Tax Credit led to a significant drop in the numbers going through the programme. It has, and they haven’t.

The DWP has named 37 benefit processing offices it will be closing as part of its modernisation plan. They will also be closing the Employer Direct contact centres in Portsmouth and Bromley and three out of the 23 Jobcentre Plus Direct Contact Centre services offices – those in Provan, Banbury and Milton

It has also unveiled the locations of 81 Jobcentre Plus benefit processing centres. Previously the work has been done in a large number of social security offices and jobcentres.

The DWP say the plans are part of a four year programme to focus services around customer need. They will enable the DWP to cut 30,000 jobs.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) have posed the question of whether legislation has done more to hinder the advancement of workplace diversity than help it.

Patricia Leighton, the author of their new report ‘Discrimination and the Law : Does the system suit the purpose’ says, “Evidence suggests slow progress has been made to create equal opportunities at work despite increasing legislation. We need to consider what impact litigation has on the employer. Does it daunt people and create negative attitudes towards discrimination issues? Law can produce a defensive and negative response from managers – more marked in small firms. It is equally, if not more important to support progressive employers who are committed to diversity as it is to impose sanctions on reluctant and prejudiced employers.”

The report suggests bias will continue despite tight legislation unless employers understand the benefits diversity can offer. Once employers recognise how central diversity is to the way business is done they will engage and drive the change – diversity will be considered essential to the success of the business.

Underlining the CIPD’s commitment to progress in this area, Dianah Worman, CIPD Equal Opportunities Adviser, says, “Managing and valuing diversity is central to good people management and makes good business sense. If an organisation fully understands and commits to the business case for diversity – as opposed to simply complying with the law and ticking boxes – then, even when circumstances change, progress in diversity will still happen.

“If we are serious about the need to create an inclusive and economically successful society, sometimes we need to ask some of the unpalatable questions raised in this report. The answers will help to ensure we design legislation in the best way to deliver a competent and diverse workforce.”

With Party Conference season almost upon us and the whiff of a General Election next Spring in the air, all the parties are sharpening up their policy proposals and trying to woo the voters. As the over 50s are a key electoral group, and one which is growing and is more likely to vote than others, its not surprising that politicians are beginning to set out their policy stall to attract them.

Although the Government published its Link-Age strategy proposals last week (see item below), the Lib Dems are the first to put out a coherent policy paper detailing their ‘Third Age’ (and Fourth Age) policy plans.

Defining ‘Third Agers’ as those born between 1945 and 1965 (a.k.a. the Baby Boomers), the policy paper identifies a number of priorities around work & retirement, learning, volunteering, advice and support and health.

Strengthening and enforcing age discrimination legislation and to improve support for older jobseekers so no one is barred from the workplace by their age.
Supporting the Government in allowing people to withdraw some of their occupational pension whilst working for the same employer, so that they can reduce their hours but make up their earnings – in order to promote a flexible decade of retirement for individuals.
Supporting changes to the way in which company accounts reflect the hidden costs of early retirement packages, so discouraging unnecessary redundancies amongst older workers.
Opening up student loans to those aged 55+, provided they have assets against which to secure the loan.
Enforcing age discrimination legislation in training so that employers cannot focus all their training resources on younger employees.
Rewarding volunteers for their time through pension credits, time banks, food vouchers or travel passes.
Setting up Third Age Advice Centres to give third agers one first point of contact for information and advice. And to bring independent financial advice services and health services such as pharmacies or the community nurse into these centres.

The Lib Dem’s proposals were formulated following discussions with various ‘age’ lobby organisations, including TAEN.

Following last week’s Court of Appeal decision in the Rutherford case, the Employment Minister Gerry Sutcliffe told the House of Commons this week
“We are reviewing upper age limits on statutory redundancy payments and general unfair dismissal claims in the light of responses to the public consultation on age discrimination carried out last year.”

Key to this issue will be the Government’s decision regarding mandatory retirement ages. As recently reported in the Financial Times, the DTI has set up a group to try and thrash out a solution to this question which has been delaying progress towards the draft age regulations. The CBI (and some other employer organisations) want a national mandatory retirement age of 65 to be introduced, TAEN and other age organisations want to see mandatory retirement ages abolished altogether. Ministers want the group’s recommendations before the end of the Autumn.

Should a mandatory retirement age be allowed, it is difficult to see how these important employment rights could be extended to those working beyond it. The issue would almost certainly be decided by the European Court of Justice - eventually.

Alan Johnson has been appointed Secretary of State at the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) following Andrew Smith’s resignation earlier this week.

Now aged 54, Johnson started work in 1968 as a postman and rose through the ranks of the Union of Communication Workers - becoming General Secretary in 1992. He first entered the House of Commons as the MP for Kingston-upon-Hull in 1997.

Since July 2003 he has been Minister of State for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education. In that role he steered the highly controversial legislation on University Funding and student fees through Parliament last year.

However his new role is going to prove even more challenging. He will come under increasing pressure to steer through a radical reform of the state pension system. However whether he is prepared to contemplate a 180 degree turn in Government policy and move away from means tested benefit, restore the link between earnings and introduce a state pension based on citizenship, rather than on an individual’s national insurance contribution record – seems unlikely at this stage. The last minister given the task of ‘thinking the unthinkable’ on pensions (Frank Field) ended up getting sacked.

Clearly from TAEN’s point of view and the agenda we pursue, it is important that the new Secretary of State sticks to his predecessor’s views on the abolition of mandatory retirement ages, the tackling of age discrimination and giving people the choice (and opportunity) to extend their working lives into and beyond their 50s. We look forward to working with him on these and other important issues….

There were 61,000 new jobs created last month according to the Mandis/Adecco Job
Creation Index. The sectors which led the way were paper, packaging and printing; leisure and hospitality and healthcare.

Richard MacMillan the Managing Director of Adecco commented, “ August is traditionally a strong month for job creation. However, this month has been particularly healthy with the best overall job creation since April.”