Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Recruitment & retention
    • Wellbeing
    • Occupational Health
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Recruitment & retention
    • Wellbeing
    • Occupational Health
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise

Age discriminationEquality, diversity and inclusion

Weekly dilemma… Age discrimination and pay

by Personnel Today 25 Apr 2006
by Personnel Today 25 Apr 2006

The new age law says that companies operating an age-based pay structure other than that enshrined in National Minimum Wage (NMW) legislation are not protected by the regulations.

Increasing the pay of younger workers to that of the higher age group will be expensive and reducing their pay would be perverse. So if a young person is paid more than the NMW, they will be entitled to claim age discrimination if an older worker is paid more – unless it is objectively justified.

How can it be justified? Surely, employers who pay young employees more than the NMW, but less than older employees doing the same job, should not be penalised?

The law on 1 October 2006 will be more subtle than this. Employers will still be able to use length of service as a reason for giving workers different benefits (Regulation 32(1) of the Age Discrimination Regulations). Different benefits might include paid holiday, company sick pay and pension payments.

But employers need to beware that, where a worker who has more than five years’ service is disadvantaged, they will need to show that it reasonably appeared to them that the award of the benefit fulfilled a business need (such as encouraging loyalty or motivation or rewarding the experience of some or all of its workers). This appears to be a subjective test and looks, therefore, like it will be reasonably easy to satisfy.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Separate rules apply to enhanced redundancy payments. The employer can still enhance redundancy payments under the new rules (for example, by using an actual week’s salary rather than the statutory figure of 290 per week, or by using a higher multiplier than provided for by statute) provided this otherwise follows the statutory framework, which provides for different redundancy payments depending on the age band into which the employee falls.

By Meriel Schindler, head of employment, Withers

Each week we ask the experts to answer your legal dilemmas. If you have a legal question or dilemma, e-mail [email protected]


Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Government to underwrite BT’s pre-privatisation pension liability
next post
HR director celebrates new Olympic role

You may also like

Women less confident of achieving pay or leadership...

9 Sep 2025

Bigger budgets, but greater scrutiny – welcome to...

9 Sep 2025

EHRC submits new code of practice to government

5 Sep 2025

Decision to sack man for Michael Jackson noises...

29 Aug 2025

EHRC acts on policies flouting law on single-sex...

28 Aug 2025

Data bias means gender pay gap wider than...

26 Aug 2025

Council defends suggested alternatives to ‘husband’ and ‘wife’

21 Aug 2025

‘Noisy and boisterous’ younger colleagues not age-related harassment

20 Aug 2025

British Transport Police first force to hire part-time...

19 Aug 2025

Eurostar’s Georgie Willis a keynote speaker at Employee...

19 Aug 2025

  • Workplace health benefits need to be simplified SPONSORED | Long-term sickness...Read more
  • Work smart – stay well: Avoid unnecessary pain with centred ergonomics SPONSORED | If you often notice...Read more
  • Elevate your L&D strategy at the World of Learning 2025 SPONSORED | This October...Read more
  • How to employ a global workforce from the UK (webinar) WEBINAR | With an unpredictable...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits Live
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Recruitment & retention
    • Wellbeing
    • Occupational Health
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise