Prevent discrimination and value diversity

Age discrimination

The government will introduce legislation to combat age discrimination in employment and vocational training by October 2006. It aims to have this legislation in place well before it comes into force to give businesses time to prepare.

Many assumptions about people - both young and old - are outdated and work against the interests of the individuals involved and the employer.

Ahead of this, best practice is to avoid discrimination on age grounds as much as possible. Find advice on employing older workers at the Acas website.

You should check there are no hidden age barriers in your selection and promotion processes - eg aim to place advertisements in publications read by a range of age groups. You should also make sure that your redundancy procedures are based on business needs rather than age.

You can read about forthcoming changes to age discrimination legislation on the Age Partnership Group website.

Subjects covered in this guide

• Introduction
• Discrimination in recruitment and induction
• Sex discrimination
• Age discrimination
• Discrimination against disabled people
• Discrimination on the grounds of race
• Discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief
• Discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation
• Discrimination over membership or non-membership of unions
• Discrimination in day-to-day working practices