So now we have it: the opening sentence of section 7. “Pensions and Welfare” of the Conservative Lib-Dem coalition agreement states:
“The parties agree to phase out the default retirement age”
I do not know what the opposite of “every cloud has a silver lining”; maybe “every blue sky has ash in it”. We now must play the waiting game. I do not mean waiting to see whether the Government will scrap the DRA (it is clear they are committed to it), but to see whether UK Vice-Chancellors cynically carry on with the 2009/10 cull of academics whose DRA is this year. It was clear at the end of 2009 that the judge in the High Court case more or less instructed HMG to review the DRA in 2010, so the vice-Chancellors cannot claim this a surprise. It was even in both the Conservative and Lib-Dem election manifestos.
One waits to see if Employment Tribunals will follow the now thoroughly discredited 2006 statute or take the judge’s words and the Government’s intentions as sound reasons to allow cases of unfair dismissal for those forced out this year, or even prevent it.
The volcano option for those whose DRA is this year is that the Government will change the DRA from 2011 and the VCs will simply get away with this year’s cull. They may save a few quid, but they will pay a price in damage to their own reputations and that of their university.
Will no VC break ranks and join the “new politics”.
Ed
