Terms and conditions

[ch 7: page 266]

It is unlawful to discriminate over employment terms and conditions because of a protected characteristic. There are some exceptions, in particular:

National Minimum Wage: The EA 10 allows employers to pay workers the National Minimum Wage (NMW) based on age-related pay bands without a claim for age discrimination. See Chapter 4 for information about the NMW.

Service-related benefits: The EA 10 contains an exception for length of service-related benefits to prevent claims for age discrimination:

• where the length of service to trigger a benefit is five years or less, the employer is exempt from a claim for age discrimination;

• where the service required exceeds five years, the employer is allowed to justify the benefit by demonstrating a reasonable belief that it fulfils a business need, such as encouraging motivation or loyalty, or rewarding experience.

Enhanced redundancy payments: It is not age discrimination to provide an enhanced redundancy payment scheme, as long as it mirrors the statutory scheme for redundancy pay. For more information, see Chapter 11: Redundancy pay.