Michelle Rodger: Enforced retirement is a worn out practice

Published on Saturday 27 September 2008 17:09

THOSE retired people among you may be looking forward to the UK Older People's Day on Wednesday. Well, maybe.

It is designed to "celebrate the huge contribution older people make to families and communities everywhere", and there are all sorts of activities, including a charity knitathon, afternoon teas, singalongs and seated exercise to music.

On the other hand, many believe the older generation could be working rather than knitting socks and watching daytime television.

Is retirement a cause for celebration or a cause for concern? Is it your choice? Or your boss's? It is a dilemma that has been played out at the European Court of Justice. And it doesn't look like it will be resolved any time soon.

Age Concern claims that forcing people to stop work at or after 65 without compensation breaches EU equality requirements but the court disagrees, and a preliminary legal opinion has rejected the claim.

While campaigners shout more loudly and angrily, and lawyers argue the finer points of law and charge more billable hours, business just gets on with it.

Colin Borland of the Federation of Small Businesses says small firms need the ability to be flexible and fill their posts with the right people. An official retirement age also allows owners to effectively plan the future of their business, and reduces the chance of a legal wrangle ensuing from suggestions that a member of staff is no longer fit.

Which is exactly the problem facing Scottish ministers, who are looking at ways to make it easier for older "under-performing" teachers to retire early. Now that's just silly. If they are under-performing surely the sensible action is to remove them?

Obviously not all older employees fail to deliver on the job. With age comes experience – of life and work. Just look at Madeleine Albright, who was well into her 60s when she became the US secretary of state, or Nelson Mandela, who was 75 when elected president of South Africa. The oldest UK Prime Minister to be appointed was 82-year-old William Gladstone.

American voters may yet replace their 62-year-old president with a 72-year-old, whose current campaign trail has been likened to Antiques Roadshow.

And what might have happened in America this week if the world's richest man, 78-year-old Warren Buffet, had been retired at 65? The $5bn he invested in Goldman Sachs (mere scatter cash when you consider his $62bn net worth) has served to bolster the bank, sent a strong message to world financial markets and netted him a cool $783m profit after just 24 hours.

We need people like that in business, ready to share their knowledge with the young whippersnappers nipping at their heels.

I just think sometimes we try to complicate and legislate where common sense should prevail.

As long as you are fit and healthy and can do the job asked of you to the standards expected of you, there should be no need for retirement on anyone's terms but your own.

To my mind the solution is simple; at 65 you chose whether or not you want to continue working. If you want to work your employer pays for you to have a full medical check-up and, like the proposed plan for those on long-term sickness or Incapacity Benefit, you receive a Fit Note to assure your employer that you are mentally and physically fit enough to do your job. Beyond that you would be appraised annually on your fitness, performance and ability to do your job.

At this stage I do believe you should waive your entitlement to any OAP or state benefits, such as cold weather payments or free prescriptions.

If you are not passed fit and/or your annual appraisal highlights an increasing struggle to do the job then your employer would have the right to retire you, at which point you would take advantage of any or all of the state benefits to which you are entitled.

I reckon we should probably all take a leaf from the book of Dr Samuel Johnson, who wisely said: "Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire."