Member Article

In Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police v Homer, Mr Homer argued that he could not obtain a degree in time to benefit from it financially before he retired aged 65, but younger employees would be able to and the policy was therefore indirectly discriminatory on the grounds of age.

The EAT considered that because the policy imposed a 'barrier for all' - the requirement was applied to all staff, young and old, and it was no more difficult for an older person to obtain a law degree than a younger one - it was not age related.

The EAT commented that any form of "universal' pay rise will be of less benefit to older employees simply because they have less time left to be in employment and this disadvantage was "the inevitable consequence of age; it is not a consequence of age discrimination".

Comment
Although the EATs approach in this case appears to provide employers with a broad discretion to implement policies that apply across the workforce, they do still need to consider any possible indirectly discriminatory effect.

It is noteworthy that the claimant did not argue that requiring a degree was of itself indirect age discrimination, on the grounds that the growth in higher education has resulted in significantly more younger than older workers having degrees. That would have raised a different case, and may have been more successful.