Representation:-

introduction of an equal opportunities policy by an employer gave employees contractual rights and was more than a mere "mission statement". It follows that if the equal opportunities policy includes an undertaking by the employer not to discriminate on grounds of age and this is subsequently broken, the employee can have a claim for breach of contract.

For main general notes see Age discrimination/a general note .

Facts:

Mr George Taylor was a Principal Officer who had been employed by the Scottish Prison Service since 1971. His minimum retirement age under his contract was 55 but at the employer's discretion he could be allowed to continue to work after attaning 55. Under his contract once he had worked for 20 years he would be entitled to double pension benefit for each subsequent year.

He had his 55th birthday in 1991 at about the same time as he completed 20 years' service. The employer accepted his request that he could continue to work until age 60 "subject to regular review", reserving the discretionary right to require retirement at any time on not less than three months' notice.

In 1994, when Mr Taylor was 58, the employer gave him notice requiring him to retire. This followed a staffing review which recommended a reduction in the workforce and agreement with the trade union involved that to minimise compulsory redundancies officers who had been retained after their 55th birthdays would be required to retire.

Mr Taylor claimed that the employer was in breach of contract by requiring him to retire before age 60 and claimied wrongful dismissal . This was on the basis that, in 1992, the year after the arrangements for continued post-55 working had been fixed, the employer had adopted an "equal opportunities policy" which included a provision that no employee would be discriminated against on grounds of age. Mr Taylor argued that this equal opportunities policy was now an express term of his contract and that the employer had broken that term by exercising its discretion to require him to retire.

Mr Taylor won before an industrial tribunal. However the Prison Service appealed to the (Scottish) EAT. The Prison Service won that appeal and won again on Mr Taylor's further appeal to the Court of Session. Mr Taylor, who must be made of stern stuff, finally appealed to the House of Lords.

Decision

Mr Taylor won the main legal point in that it was held that the 1992 introduction of an equal opportunities policy by the Prison Service had given him contractual rights.

However he lost the case as a whole because the House of Lords agreed with the EAT and the Court of Session that by requiring him to retire at 55 the employer had not contradicted its equal opportunities policy and therefore that there had not been a breach of the contract.

The House of Lords pointed out that the contract must be taken as a whole and said that "When the equal opportunities policy was introduced it did not remove from the contract the provisions which it contained about the minimum retirement age. These provisions were not inconsistent with the equal opportunities policy, as the same minimum retirement age applied to everyone irrespective of his or her age on entering into the contract".