Examination of Witnesses (Questions 540
- 541)
MONDAY 19 JUNE 2006
MS TERESA
PERCHARD AND
MR DOUG
TAYLOR
Q540 Natascha Engel: To move on to
age discrimination, in your memorandum you said that the voluntary
approach to combating ageism in the workplace over the last eight
years has achieved little change. Do you think that the implementation
of the age discrimination legislation in October 2006 will make
any difference?
Ms Perchard: We touched just now
on our evidence base about employment problems and the very limited
system there is at the moment for enforcement of employment rights.
It relies on the individual to take a complaint to their employer
and then possibly to put that to a tribunal, and for a whole variety
of reasons people will get put off from doing that, and tribunal
cases are not representative, necessarily, of the health of the
employer base, in terms of compliance. I think effectiveness of
tackling age discrimination depends on a number of things, not
least the impact of the new Commission on Equality and Human Rights
and how able it is to take up cases, not just individual cases
but tackle systemic discrimination in certain sectors of the employment
market. Also to engage employers in seeing that older workers
are not a drain, they are a benefit, and that having a mixed workforce
is of benefit to business, mixed in lots of different ways, not
just age but ethnicity as well and cultural diversity. That involves
a lot of changing, making employers, particularly employers who
own their own business, want to see a mixed workforce and planning
a mixed workforce; so we need to do quite a selling job about
the benefits of older workers.
Q541 Natascha Engel: The legislation
is going to help though, is it not; it is better than not having
it?
Ms Perchard: Yes. On the back
of it, you get a lot of government promotion and that can only
help.
Mr Taylor: I have enjoyed listening
to Teresa, actually. We have expressed a view in the past that
we are not necessarily in favour of increasing the retirement
age but we saw it as an inevitability. Indeed, looking at the
work done by the Pension Commission, clearly the sums that add
up in different parts create a whole, and therefore unpicking
part of it must have an impact on another part. I think some of
the points made about age discrimination are important, because
if there were to be continued expectations of people working longer
then there needs to be protection for people in the employment
market.
Chairman: That is the end, you will be
glad to know. Can I thank you for some very perceptive and thoughtful
contributions and I am sure those will be reflected in our final
report. Thank you very much.
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