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This Practice Note considers the legal issues that may arise in relation to retirement from employment, including discrimination, justification of a fixed retirement age and dismissal, and some of the practical issues surrounding retirement including flexible retirement, workplace discussions, poor performance, sickness, health and safety, insured benefits, pensions and employee share schemes.

From October 2006, the Employment Equality Act (Age) Regulations 2006:

1. •

   made it unlawful to discriminate against workers, employees and others on the grounds of age

2. •

   introduced a default retirement age (DRA) of 65 for employees, and

3. •

   made retirement a potentially fair reason for dismissal of an employee

The DRA was subsequently abolished and the associated statutory retirement procedures repealed with effect from 6 April 2011. The government stated that it was repealing the DRA in order to ensure that no one should be deprived of the opportunity to work simply because they had reached a particular age.

As a result, retirement ‘age’ is usually now dictated by the employee, ie it is the age at which the employee chooses to retire. Some employers, however, still