Public and Commercial Services Union

The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 came into force on 1 October 2006. They apply in England, Wales and Scotland.

The Regulations apply to all employment and vocational training and make it unlawful to discriminate directly or indirectly, on the grounds of age, and also to harass or victimise a person.

Indirect discrimination applies to a policy or practice, which on the face of it has nothing to do with age but which, in its practice, operates to the detriment of people of a particular age group.

PCS –v- HM Prison Service

On 13 September 2007, PCS lodged 11 claims with the Employment Tribunal for Administrative Officers, Manager G and Manager D grades, for members with 5 or more years of service, who are not on their pay maximum.

PCS believes that the pay grade maximum is the rate for the job, and that staff undertaking the full range of duties commensurate with the grade should be on the maximum. In fact the progression system within the Prison Service is appalling, taking many years to move from the minima to the maxima. This is wrong, and it simply does not take so long to be fully competent at the work.

Age discrimination

We believe that the Prison Service pay progression system does in fact indirectly discriminate in terms of age, and the Prison Service is vulnerable under the Age Regulations; generally younger staff have to wait years to reach the maximum, often returning to the minima after a pay settlement, whilst generally older staff are more likely to be on their maximum. Hence the system may be discriminatory for younger staff.

The same logic applies to the annual leave policy, with the policy of 30 days leave after 10 year’s service generally punitive for younger members of staff.

Submit a claim

We are now inviting members to submit your own claim; the only criteria being that:-

1. You have 5 years or more service in grade, and
2. You are not on the pay maximum.

How to submit a claim

The first step is to complete in full an information proforma, which can be downloaded from this website or sent to your email address upon request.

The information proforma must then be returned electronically to a dedicated email address - prisonage@pcs.org.uk

Once your information has been received and processed, it will be formally acknowledged and you will be provided with a unique reference number and further information on how your claim will be progressed.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact PCS HQ2 directly.