Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police v Homer EAT/0191/08

age discrimination | promotion | degree requirement

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has overturned an employment tribunal decision that an employer discriminated against an employee who was close to retirement when it required him to complete a law degree before he could be promoted.

Mr Homer was in his 60s and worked as a legal adviser with the police national legal database, having had 30 years’ experience as a police officer. He applied for promotion to a higher pay grade. His employer turned down the application, even though he was very experienced, on the grounds that he did not meet its “essential” requirement that he hold a law degree or similar qualification. The employer offered to finance Mr Homer in taking a part-time degree course, but he turned down the opportunity as he felt that it would be too onerous to have to study on a part-time basis and he intended to retire at 65 anyway, at which point he would not have completed the degree.

An employment tribunal found that Mr Homer had been indirectly discriminated against on the grounds of his age. It accepted his argument that discrimination occurred because employees in the age group of 30 to 59 were able to complete a law degree before the employer’s normal retirement age of 65, while employees aged 60 to 65 did not have time to do a law degree before they retired.

The EAT disagreed. There was no basis for concluding that there was any particular disadvantage that affected employees falling within the age bracket of 60 to 65. The employer treated all employees without a degree in precisely the same way. They had to acquire a degree before being eligible for the promotion, whatever age they were. It was not any more difficult for an older person to obtain the qualification. The financial disadvantage resulting from the degree requirement was the inevitable consequence of age, not a consequence of age discrimination.

The EAT pointed out that Mr Homer had not advanced the argument that requiring a degree was in itself indirect age discrimination on the grounds that the growth in higher education has resulted in significantly more younger than older workers being in possession of a degree. That would have raised a different case.

Case transcript of Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police v Homer (Microsoft Word format, 73K) (on the EAT website)

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