14.10.13 Age Discrimination Case – Lockwood v (1) Department of Work and Pensions; (2) Cabinet Office

Ms Romilly Lockwood commenced her employment with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) in 1999, at aged 18. Throughout her employment with the DWP she remained in the same role until 2007, aged 26, when her position was declared surplus. On the same day, the DWP announced a voluntarily redundancy scheme, therefore Ms Lockwood applied for release under it. She was entitled to compensation under the Civil Service Compensation Scheme (CSCS) as she was under 50 with at least one year’s qualifying experience.

As a 26 year old with almost eight years of service, Ms Lockwood was entitled to a payment of £10,849.04 under the CSCS.  However, if she had been 35 with the identical length of service she would have been entitled to a further £17,690.58. Ms Lockwood believed this was direct discrimination against her on ground of her age, in breach of the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006.

The Court of Appeal held the Employment Tribunal was incorrect to take into account differences between a Claimant and comparator that related to age. The Court of Appeal found that the Employment Tribunal had not conducted the comparison exercise properly. Regulation 3(2) of the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 provides the ‘relevant’ circumstances of the Claimant and the comparator must be “the same, or not materially different.” The Employment Tribunal wrongly relied on the age differences between the Claimant and comparator; namely Ms Lockwood was less likely to have family ties and less difficulty to recover from redundancy because she was younger than her comparator.

The Court did agree that Ms Lockwood had suffered less favourable treatment, however the appeal was dismissed as the Court agreed the less favourable treatment was objectively justified.

This case reinforces the importance of the two stage test for age discrimination claims. In the first stage the claimant must provide evidence that could amount to discrimination. The second stage is for the respondent to prove the treatment was not on the basis of age, and it must be backed by evidence/ a legitimate aim.