A 63-year old legal adviser with the police national legal database, who had 30 years’ experience as a police officer, applied for promotion to a higher grade. His employer turned down the application, even though he was very experienced, on the grounds that he did not meet its requirement that he hold a law degree. The employer offered to finance the employee in taking a degree course, but he would have had to study on a part-time basis and intended to retire at 65 anyway, at which point he would not have completed the degree.

An employment tribunal upheld his claim for indirect age discrimination. It accepted that requiring a degree and not allowing experience as an alternative can disadvantage older workers, as far more school leavers go to university nowadays. It was also found that the employer had bent the rules for another employee to allow for a “degree in law or similar”.

As the ACAS guidance on age discrimination (PDF format, 562K) states, qualifications have changed and developed over the years and employers should make sure that the qualifications that they specify do not disadvantage people at different ages.

Employers should ask: Are the qualifications really necessary? Are they still current? And are there other ways of specifying the level of skill required?

Employers that require specific qualifications for recruitment or promotion must be able to justify their need in objective terms and make it clear that they will consider equivalent or similar level alternative qualifications.

XpertHR’s line manager briefing on age discrimination [subscription required] includes guidance on promotion issues.

Read more about the decision on the Yorkshire Post website.