Significant issues addressed by the legislation include the provision of a national default retirement age set at 65 (to be retained for at least 5 years) and the ability for employees to request work beyond the retirement age following procedure in schedule 6 of the Regulations.
A legal challenge to the Default Retirement Age ("DRA") brought by the charity Age UK failed in September 2009, with the judge finding that the Regulations did not breach the European Union's Equal Treatment at Work Directive.[1][2]
The Coalition government announced in July 2010 that it intends to eliminate the DRA from October 2011.[3] The finalised draft regulations were published on 1 March 2010 and the DRA will be abolished so that no forced retirements will be able to take place after 5 October 2012 (at the very latest).[4]