Q.  At the University of Westminster, we have removed the date of birth field from our application form and have put it in put it in our EO monitoring form instead so that we will no longer know at either the short-listing or the interview stage what is the age of any of the applicants. If we find having made the appointment that we have recruited someone who is over 65, when would it be appropriate to include them in the retirement process? Do we need to have a 'lay' period after their start date before we contact them about retirement?

A. One note of caution, an institution that has decided to operate with a retirement age could call that into question by then recruiting people over 65. The law does allow organisations to limit recruitment at 64.5. However, removing age from your application form and putting it on your EO form is a positive step towards making your recruitment process age neutral and bias free.

Once you have selected and successfully appointed the most appropriate candidate in terms of the job description and person specification and you then find that they are over 65 (from the EO form) then add their name to the regular reports you are already generating on the right to request work beyond retirement.  A clear business case would need to be made to stay beyond the age of 65 and the University would need to ensure that the individual is brought into the process in exactly the same way as existing members of staff who are approaching or over retirement age.