The Claimant was approaching 30 years service as a police officer with the Respondent and therefore was eligible to retire. It was necessary to make redundancies and/or redeployments and the Claimant was asked if he was thinking of retiring and, if not, whether he wanted to stay in his current role or be redeployed. The Claimant said he wanted to stay. The Claimant was made redundant after he scored less than others when tested against a matrix of skills. The Claimant brought a claim in the Employment Tribunal against the Respondent for age discrimination. He contended that the matrix was deliberately manipulated to secure the result that he would obtain fewer points than colleagues and that the reason for so doing was to avoid the problem of his taking retirement. The Claimant lost his claim of age discrimination in the ET and appealed.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal dismissed the appeal. The Respondent had made a shambles of devising a matrix and applying points to all affected in a reorganisation of police officers. But, the ET was entitled to uphold the explanation as an honest attempt to be fair, when answering the claim that they had deliberately manipulated the scheme to ensure the Claimant, by reason of his age, fell outside the safety zone. http://bit.ly/1a3SNCT